Addict Fic
by fictorium
Summary: Set in season 2, after Hook and Cora have been dealt with. Regina is rattling around in her lonely life and Emma is struggling to handle the strangest year of her life, with unfamiliar support systems and too many responsibilities. Is it possible the one person who'll understand is the person she can't quite bring herself to trust? TW: suicidal ideation, gunplay, substance abuse
1. Chapter 1

Regina's about to turn on the shower when she hears the pounding at the front door. She freezes, palm of her hand against the chrome, and considers her options. If this is the mob, now, weeks later, then she no longer has a viable escape plan.

The knocking continues, erratic and loud. Regina marches out into the hall, tamping down the pointless instinct to check on Henry, to make sure it hasn't woken him; after all, he isn't there. If the interruption and the momentary fear have irritated her, it's that painful reminder that has her all the way to fuming by the time she throws open the front door.

"What?" She snaps, as Emma Swan stands there, arm still raised and swaying slightly in the evening breeze.

"Fuck," is all Emma says, before trying to move and falling at Regina's feet instead. The fall is clumsy, a tangle of limbs that hits the marble floor hard. Regina prods at Emma's limp body with her bare foot, getting no more than a grunt in response.

Part of her wants to leave the Sheriff there-the stink of alcohol clouding the air around her- to freeze on the cold floor. Mostly, Regina is contemplating how this can be turned to her advantage: in terms of getting Henry back something like this could prove useful in front of any kind of mediator.

But something in Regina twinges at the pathetic sight before her, it's something she remembers only too well from her own darkest days. Scanning her front garden to ensure there are no witnesses, she bends down and hooks her arms under Emma's, hauling her back up to a sitting position.

"Can you walk?" Regina snaps.

"Yeah," Emma mumbles, her lip cut and swollen. "Kinda."

Regina considers for another long moment, tapping her foot as she thinks about her options. It's not too late to turn a drunken intruder out into the night, file a complaint with the Sheriff's department that will never be actioned. Prisoners' rights follow the old world model here, now that everyone has their memory back. And if Emma was a hero for breaking the curse, it's only cemented by her short-lived trip back to the Enchanted Forest.

"Oh, come on," Regina sighs, pulling Emma to her feet and gingerly wrapping a supporting arm around her waist. "Upstairs."

"Why?" Emma says. "Why are you helping me?" She slurs.

"Because, Miss Swan," Regina replies, dragging Emma towards the stairs. "You don't have the monopoly on what good people do."

* * *

Regina bites back a few choice curse words as Emma stumbles and falls. It's not something she's eager to share with outsiders, but Regina realizes she's going to need a little help from her magic, or Emma will send them both tumbling right back down the stairs.

When Regina casts the spell, she expects Emma to lash out or at least complain, but she seems quite happy to be gently levitated up the rest of the way. Regina shakes her head, because if Emma is so wasted she can't tell she isn't walking under her own steam, then it's worse than Regina thought.

They come to a halt in the bathroom, and Regina lowers Emma onto the tile floor, where she promptly sinks to her knees.

"If you're going to be sick," Regina warns. "The toilet is over there."

"M'fine," Emma grunts, but she's holding her head in her hands like she's anything but.

"Oh, for Gods' sakes," Regina groans, and with a few more flicks of her wrist she has Emma stripped to her tank top and underwear.

"Hey!" Emma protests. "No funny business."

"Get in the shower," Regina orders, her patience worn so thin it's in serious danger of snapping. "Now."

Something in Regina's tone must resonate, because Emma does as she's told. She's in the shower, pulling her tank top over her head when Regina turns it on, full blast and just above freezing. Emma squeals, and tries to jump clear of the spray; Regina grabs her arm and holds her in place.

"Sober up," Regina commands, stepping back and shaking the water from her hands. "I'll leave clean clothes, then come downstairs for coffee."

She doesn't wait for a reply, sweeping out of the bathroom and leaving Emma to the water.

* * *

Regina pours herself half a mug, and she's stirring in the cream and sugar when Emma appears, looking cold and sheepish in Regina's workout clothes. Her blonde hair hangs limply in wet strands around her face, and Regina wrinkles her nose as drips of water fall from it to the floor.

"I, um," Emma starts, but Regina is in no mood for half-hearted apologies.

"How do you take your coffee?" She asks, reaching for the cream.

"Black is fine," Emma says, and Regina isn't sure why she's lying but pours a mug and hands it over regardless.

"You can stay," Regina says, sipping her own creamy coffee. "In one of the guest rooms."

"I don't need to-"

"You can't drive," Regina says bluntly. "And it's already too late to be wandering around. This isn't a sleepy little town any more, Miss Swan. The monsters are back."

Emma swallows audibly at that threat, before taking a mouthful of coffee.

"Thank you," she says, barely above a whisper, but Regina hears it loud and clear. Perhaps it's the unfamiliarity of the words that make them resonate, or maybe it's just hearing them from the last person Regina expected.

* * *

She's gone, in the morning. Regina can feel the return of emptiness to the house as soon as she wakes.

There's a dull pang of a headache starting, so she shakes out a couple of pills with her morning coffee. Just a precaution, of course; this solitude is boring enough without pain to keep her from filling the time.

* * *

Henry's next visit is excruciating.

He's still hoping that if he refuses to speak, Regina will get angry and cancel the visits. Truthfully, he's smart to appeal to that spiteful side of her nature, and it's taking all of her self-control not to metaphorically cut off her own nose when it comes to him. Spite has long been her default position.

What makes it especially awkward, though, is Emma's presence. Usually Henry insists that Emma stay in the room, but he doesn't seem especially warm to her today either, and so Emma has been pacing in the hall and is now rattling around in Regina's kitchen, an action guaranteed to set her teeth on edge.

It's sheer stubbornness that makes Regina wait until the hour is up, not even telling Henry off for putting his feet on the coffee table. He flicks through a comic and grunts at her vague questions about school, and Regina tells herself that it's something, even though it's worse than nothing at all.

Emma won't meet Regina's eyes as Henry runs into the hallway looking for her. The two of them depart in silence, and Regina blinks back angry tears she didn't mean to shed.

* * *

Regina comes and goes under cover of darkness wherever possible. Some days the house is unbearable in its confinement, despite the numerous rooms and high ceilings. Some days there's no substitute for fresh air and open space, because that's the only way Regina can control the creeping dread that reminds her of being held captive by her mother and Leopold in turn.

That's why she's striding back to the house via back streets after nine, pleasantly exhausted and feeling the burn in her calves from decent exercise. It means she happens on Charming wrestling with another figure in the alley that runs behind Granny's, a thoroughfare that's rarely used by anyone.

Regina thinks about intervening, to have Charming owe her some kind of favor, until the blonde curls spill from under a baseball cap and Regina realizes the Prince is wrestling with his own daughter.

"Give me the keys," he's saying in that plaintive way he has. Even now, as she lands blows on his arms and chest, the man doesn't dare alienate the daughter he's only just found.

It's strangely intrusive, and so Regina bows her head once more and continues on her way home. Let the Charmings deal with their own problems; Gods know she has enough of her own.

* * *

If the car weren't such a gaudy shade of yellow, Regina wouldn't notice it as she draws the bedroom curtains. Her breath catches in her throat at the sight, and she waves a hand to turn off the lights, not caring if magic and electricity should react badly, as she's been worried they will.

But Emma Swan doesn't get out of the car in the twenty minutes that Regina watches. It should be easy enough to ignore it, to let her freeze in the chill of a fall night, but when Regina slides beneath the sheets she finds herself unable to keep her eyes closed, with even less chance of being able to sleep.

So she finds herself pulling on that day's warm clothes from the top of the laundry hamper, not bothering with underwear, and trailing out along the garden path with a flashlight in her hand and a growing sense of unease.

Regina opens the driver's side door to discover Emma Swan with an almost empty bottle of bourbon in one hand and her service revolver in the other. In the two weeks since Regina spotted her behind the diner, Emma's demeanor hasn't improved even slightly.

"Have you come here to kill me, Sheriff?" Regina asks the only reasonable question she can conjure up.

"No," Emma says bluntly, her voice barely recognizable. "I think I came here to kill myself."

* * *

"Put it down," Regina warns, hands on her hips now, clutching hard enough to wrinkle the fabric. An hour has passed, an hour mercifully spent indoors after she coaxed Emma inside the house, but Emma seems no more inclined to part with the deadly weapon she brought with her.

"Make me," Emma challenges, legs swinging against the breakfast bar where she sits, seemingly content beside the fruit bowl and some unopened mail. It might even be sort of domestic, if not for the loaded .45 in her hand. And if the gun were the only thing loaded tonight.

"Don't you ever ask yourself what the point is, Regina?" Emma looks like she's genuinely thinking about it, too. "I mean, you're holed up here in your revenge gone wrong, and everyone hates you. Even Henry hates you."

"Stop it," Regina says, and it sounds more like a plea than a threat, now.

"Maybe I'd be doing us all a favor," Emma continues, staring down the gun barrel, mesmerized. "Whaddya say? I do you first, then take myself out. We can stage it, make it look pretty."

"There's nothing pretty about a dead body," Regina snaps.

"Right," Emma says. "You would know."

"You're drunk," Regina points out again. "In the morning, through the headache, you'll remember that you have parents who love you; you'll remember that my son loves you. And I suspect even that puppet loves you, if only you would let him."

Emma laughs, and it's as hollow as the space where Regina's heart used to be.

"My parents don't know what to do with me. They look at me and it's just... disappointment. Henry's just as bad. He doesn't understand why I'm not a perfect Stepford Mom like you. And the only guy who maybe loves me abandoned me over and over again. Not to mention that I can't stand him. So what the fuck am I sticking around for?"

"You could run," Regina bargains. "Isn't that your thing?"

"They'll come after me," Emma sighs. "They'll feel like they have to."

She lowers the gun, finally, and Regina feels her chest finally expand with the air from a full breath.

"I could help you," Regina suggests, uneasy at even the though. "With magic."

She watches, helpless, as Emma lets the first wracking sob escape.

* * *

"Take it," Emma says ten minutes later, utterly defeated. Regina snatches the gun before anyone can change their mind, shoving it in the pantry and locking the door. Emma doesn't appear to be looking, so Regina slips the key discreetly into the cutlery drawer. "I don't want to run," Emma mumbles, barely loud enough for Regina to hear.

"Then stay," Regina offers, not unreasonably. "But I won't let Henry stay with you if you're drinking. I will take him back, via any means necessary."

"You don't get to decide that," Emma says, a flaring of her usual fight crossing her face and dying out a moment later. "But fuck. Isn't this why I gave him up in the first place?"

"The drinking," Regina says carefully. "Is it always... this bad?"

"Nah," Emma says easily. "I mean, I've had a taste for it as long as I can remember, but you get that, right? I mean, I've seen your liquor cabinet, Madam Mayor."

"I'm not a drunk," Regina says, folding her arms over her chest. She feels rumpled in yesterday's clothes, her makeup already removed and her hair mussed by failed attempts at sleep and then manhandling Emma from the car to the house. Regina feels exhausted, down to the bone, and the night shows no signs of ending.

"Neither am I," Emma protests, but it's weak.

"Evidence would suggest otherwise," Regina presses. "Emma, please. Should I call your parents? They can get you... help, or something."

Emma looks up at the surprisingly tender use of her actual name.

"You wouldn't," Emma challenges, and she's not slurring her words now.

"Watch me," Regina threatens, hands firmly on her hips. It makes her look far more in control than she actually feels. "You want to watch me pick up the phone and make it happen? Those idiots will coming running for you in a heartbeat."

"And then they'll 'nice' me to death!" Emma whines. "You tell me, Regina: is nice what I need right now? How long until I have them wrapped around my little finger?"

"You're horrible," Regina accuses, leaning back against the pantry door. "And you're a goddamned drunk who isn't fit to look after a child."

Emma shrugs.

"I can't take it, here. Every day I disappoint someone. Henry, my parents, the people who think I'm a cross between Cinderella and the chick from Kill Bill."

"You've met Cinderella," Regina points out, from sheer force of habit now. "I don't think she's anything particularly special."

"It's just so... it's like I'm going to scream if I don't get out. But if I leave, everybody gets hurt. I've never had anyone to leave behind before. I hate it. Don't you get why I might want to just not deal with that for a while? Drinking, well, it helps."

"No," Regina says firmly, mind made up. "I'm calling them. You are not my problem."

But Emma is on her before Regina knows what's happening. She smells like bourbon and cigarette smoke, because apparently falling back on one vice at a time is just so passé.

"If they take me away, we won't get a chance to try this," Emma says, her voice little more than a husky whisper that's smothered when her mouth starts to kiss Regina's neck. "Or this," she adds, nipping at Regina's earlobe. That sends a jolt straight to Regina's clit, and she's already losing.

"You have to stop," Regina warns, willing her knees not to tremble, trying desperately not to lean into the hot, wet pressure of Emma's relentless mouth. "I don't want this. I don't want you."

"Your eyes say otherwise, Regina," Emma points out as her mouth continues its determined assault. "You've been fucking me with your eyes since the first night we met. How about we trying fucking in a much, much better way, hmm?"

"It's just because you're drunk," Regina accuses, clutching at Emma's jacket but failing to push her away. She considers for a long moment. "If we do this, you have to promise to stop drinking."

"I can do that," Emma lies, reaching for the waistband of Regina's pants. "I can stop for you."

"Not for me. For Henry," Regina insists. She attempts one final, weak protest but her hands are already grasping desperately at Emma's denim-covered ass.

"Okay, Regina. But please," Emma pleads. "Don't tell them. Me and you, okay? Just me and you. And this."

"Fuck," is the only thing Regina has left to reply with. Emma has her hands under Regina's sweater now, and she hisses happily on discovering bare breasts and no bra.

"You sure you didn't plan this?" Emma says, smiling as she tugs the sweater up over Regina's willing arms and throws it on the kitchen floor.

"Yes, it was the perfect plan," Regina grumbles, rolling her eyes just a little. It's hard not to feel a little self-conscious, standing there bare-breasted and trembling slightly. "All I needed was for you to show up drunk and suicidal, if not homicidal."

"Hey!" Emma protests, smacking Regina's ass just hard enough for it to sting through the wool of her pants.

"Can't get angry when it's true," Regina tries to say, but Emma's tugging at her bottom lip with intent and the words fall into nonsense.

"Upstairs," Emma says, breathless when she releases Regina's mouth. "I want to fuck you in a bed."

"How romantic," Regina mutters, but she picks up her discarded sweater and leads the way, stopped at various points by Emma pushing her against a wall for more kisses, by Emma undoing the button on Regina's pants and letting them almost trip her on the stairs. At one point, when Emma lifts Regina up against the wall outside the bedroom, Regina simply wraps her legs around Emma and decides to hell with ever making it to bed.

"Not so fast," Emma says, before sucking lewdly on Regina's painfully hard nipple. She releases it with an almost comical, hollow 'pop' and fixes those stormy green eyes on Regina's face, which has to be flushed with the heat and arousal that's leaving her dizzy. "We are making it to your bed," Emma continues. "No matter how strong your thighs are."

Regina squeezes them to make her point, and Emma groans.

"Don't underestimate me, your Majesty," Emma warns, grabbing Regina's ass and pulling her away from the wall. In stumbling steps, punctuated by more breathless, unforgiving kisses, they push through the door of Regina's bedroom.

"How did you know this was the right room?" Regina asks, once Emma has dropped her carelessly on the bed.

"I spy on you sometimes," Emma says with a shrug. "Well, I did. To make sure the kid was okay."

At the mention of Henry, some of Regina's ardor cools.

"Should we be doing this?" She asks. "Henry already hates me and if he thinks-"

"He doesn't hate you," Emma soothes, straddling Regina's lap as she sits up on the mattress. "He doesn't. He's getting to hate me, though. Another week of me burning dinner and not washing his superhero shirts fast enough, and he'll be running back here to you."

"Don't joke about that," Regina warns, her mood darkening. Emma probably doesn't intend it that way, but Regina is so heartily sick of everyone dangling the things she wants in front of her, only to snatch them away and punish her for daring to hope.

"Enough Henry talk," Emma insists, her palms flat against Regina's bare chest now. "Just... enough."

Regina could confess that she knows this feeling of worthlessness, that she knows what it feels like to stare at a sleeping child and mentally list the ways in which you're failing him, but she keeps her mouth firmly closed. At least until Emma seeks out another searing kiss, this time more forceful with her tongue, and it feels like a promise of what else she's going to do with it.

"Are you sure?" Regina asks, extending the one courtesy that's never been offered to her. Emma responds by pushing Regina down on the bed, and as she looms over Regina with blonde hair backlit like a halo, Emma doesn't look quite so broken anymore.

* * *

It's not exactly a masterclass in finesse.

Not using magic has made Regina's body sluggish in ways she couldn't predict, and her fingers take a little longer to carry out her commands. They paw blindly at each other's clothing, apparently deciding along the way that contact is more important than stripping in anything like a seductive manner. Emma actually throws her bra across the room, and when it comes to removing Regina's pants, they're tugged down her legs and dropped with little ceremony.

"Impatient?" Regina gasps as Emma wriggles out of her own remaining clothes before laying herself on top of Regina, pushing her legs under the sheets.

"Aren't you?" Emma says, before trailing another line of bourbon-soaked kisses down Regina's neck, laughing softly when Regina clutches at Emma's hair, pulling her closer and refusing to let her pull away. "Don't worry, your Majesty. I'm not going to make you wait."

"Don't call me-" Regina starts to scold, but Emma's mouth has already moved south, and she's toying with a hard nipple like a woman on a mission. Regina's words dissolve into gasps as the shocks of sensation radiate through her breast, finding faint echoes all over her body. It's been too long since anyone touched her like this, and decades since anyone did it with anything approaching enthusiasm. Emma might be a slightly sloppy drunk, but there's very little wrong with her motor control right now.

"Hmm?" Emma murmurs against Regina's skin, those unmoisturized hands clutching desperately at soft flesh, squeezing in a counterpoint to the flick-flick-flick of Emma's tongue. Regina arches into the touch as Emma begins to suck instead, and this time when Regina reaches for those messy blonde curls, she holds on tight enough to make a point.

Emma kisses her way across to the neglected breast, Regina's hand guiding her there without complaint, and this time it's a little less playful, and there's a lot more breathy moaning on both their parts as Emma twists and teases, before returning to Regina's waiting mouth in a flurry of open-mouthed kisses against skin that's now practically feverish.

It feels almost demure to be half-covered by the sheets, but there's nothing shy about the way Emma insinuates her thigh between Regina's. The gentle, rocking pressure seems like a natural extension of Emma being on top, and Regina parts her thighs a little further, wanting every bit of contact that Emma's willing to give her.

"So hot," Emma mutters, and this time she moves down while charting an unseen map with her tongue. She swirls in maddening circles over areola and nipple alike, before lathing the lines of Regina ribs in sweeping and fluttering touches. "I hate that about you," she continues, and Regina's eyes sting for a moment with undefended tears. At least now, they're on familiar ground.

She forgets her offense quickly enough as Emma traces her hipbones, replacing the pressure between Regina's thighs with darting kisses and soft flickers of tongue along every sensitive edge and curve.

"Please," Regina whispers when the anticipation becomes too much. She's arching her hips off the bed to urge Emma towards more rewarding contact, fingers tugging hard on Emma's hair to try and force the issue, but in the soft light of the bedroom Emma is a tease, her smile lazy and smug in a way that makes Regina want to pin her down and fuck her til she cries. It's not helping anything to see that smile resting between Regina's legs, Emma's face shrouded by the sheets as though she's something angelic, like there's still good in her left to corrupt.

Regina licks her lips at the thought of being the one to do exactly that.

Before she can say something cruel (which, if she guesses correctly, would spur Emma on more than make her stop), Emma's warm lips are pressed around Regina's clit. No feather-light touches now, only slow, rhythmic sucking punctuated by smooth strokes of Emma's tongue, as strong as a heartbeat and enough to have Regina clutching desperately at the sheets each time. She's already straining her throat with the cries she tries to bite back, and when Emma coaxes her over the edge for the first time (arms propped under Regina's thighs, splayed hands resting on Regina's abdomen to hold her in place) Regina actually screams for a second, before the sound catches in her throat.

"Well," Emma says, her weight on top of Regina once more, pinning her to slightly damp sheets. Emma's whispering the words right next to Regina's ear, making her shiver in her oversensitized state. "That was worth staying alive for. Here," she adds, kissing Regina thoroughly but almost sweetly, stealing just a little more air from her struggling body. "Did you know you taste that good?"

"Don't be... crude," Regina snaps, her face flushing all over again. Seduction is one thing, but the naked, sweaty reality of sex is another. She feels a sweep of shame wash over her, making her feel rigid in Emma's casual embrace.

"You okay?" Emma asks, propping herself up on her elbows. Her hair, messier than ever, sweeps over Regina's face, tickles at her shoulders. "Because if you're about to have some kind of revelation and start babbling about how colors seem brighter now, I'm outta here."

"Shut up," Regina says, finally in control of herself again. She emphasizes her point by kissing the base of Emma's throat, grazing the pulse that beats there with her teeth in warning. She may be a prisoner and a mother and a hundred other things, but she is still the Evil Queen, and no daughter of Snow White will ever have the upper hand.

That's why she raises a knee gently for leverage, flipping Emma onto her back with surprising ease. It helps, at least, that Emma is too busy grabbing Regina's ass to complain about the reversal.

Greedy now, Regina charts her own path over Emma's warm body, dipping and swirling her tongue whenever there's a hitch in Emma's breathing, nipping with her teeth anywhere that provokes a moan. Emma is grasping, her hands restless against Regina's back, and when Regina focuses on incredibly sensitive breasts, she finds Emma's nails raking down her back hard enough to make Regina cry out at the sudden pain.

"Sorry," Emma says, and she looks genuinely upset that she might have gone too far.

"Don't be," Regina says with a shrug, before returning to the task at hand. "I can take it," she adds, and when she kisses Emma their lips meet almost hard enough to bruise.

"I need..." Emma starts to say, but whether she doesn't know the rest of the thought, or the movement of Regina's hand has interrupted the process, it's hard to tell.

"This?" Regina asks as her fingers slip between Emma's parted legs. The slickness that greets her hand would suggest that, yes, this is exactly what Emma Swan needs, and pretty desperately too.

"Fuck," Emma gasps, hips rocking up to meet Regina's hand, desperately seeking more pressure. Closing her eyes for a moment, thinking of the ways she touches herself on lonely nights, Regina moves her fingers slowly, circling Emma's clit hard and then easing off. "Tease," Emma chokes out, but her body is undulating in time with Regina's movements, the tension building exquisitely as Regina slips two fingers inside, crooking them roughly against Emma's g-spot, making her back arch like a bow.

"You're gonna..." Emma's words dissolve into another soft moan, and Regina knows she has her, the tightening around her fingers confirms it.

"Make you come?" Regina whispers, bending forward to capture a hard nipple between her teeth. "Yes," she says, releasing after Emma actually shrieks at the sensations. "I am."

"But-" Emma tries to protest, defenseless against the corkscrewing motion of Regina's fingers. The thumb flat against her clit is the final straw, and Emma comes with a cry. She grabs Regina by the hair, pulling her down on top of Emma as she rides out the aftershocks. With not much grace, Regina eventually pulls her hand free, stroking Emma's hair with damp fingers.

"Good?" Regina asks, feeling sleepy and sated for the first time in months.

"Mmm," Emma confirms, before they both drift off on top of the sheets.


	2. Chapter 2

Of course, Emma's gone when Regina wakes.

It's ridiculous to think that a little naked, and at times almost violent, contact on Regina's Egyptian cotton sheets would change that. It does little to soothe the whirl of anger and disappointment that settles in the pit of Regina's belly, like too much black coffee on an empty stomach.

She showers briskly, the water just cool enough to be uncomfortable as she washes away every last trace of the previous night's mistake. Except, that is, the bruising along her hip bones, and the scratches on her back that sting like nettles when the cold spray washes over them.

Dressed and presentable, Regina makes her way downstairs only to discover that Emma has found both the key and her gun, and to add insult to injury, Regina doesn't have a single coffee bean in the house. The recent upheaval has shattered her once flawless routine and Regina finds herself faced with the unpleasant thought of a journey to the store. It would kill her to admit the pang of fear out loud, to have anyone else acknowledge it, and so for now this echoing loneliness is fortunate.

She weighs the risk of the town being busy at this time in the morning-the school day starting, most workplaces beginning their business day-against the very pressing need for some caffeine. Her slight headache and sluggish brain mean it's not much of a contest, and she picks her car keys off the counter, making a quick detour to the bathroom for a couple of pills to ease her head.

The diner is packed, and yet Regina's entrance still causes a temporary hush to fall over the room. She rolls her eyes behind dark glasses, and ignores them. She cuts in line, taking her place right next to Emma.

"Sheriff," Regina says, and it almost sounds cordial.

"Regina," Emma says gruffly, looking embarrassed at the lack of title to use. "I, uh, Henry said to..."

"Well, it can't be 'send his love'," Regina interrupts. "So, what? Did he tell you to say 'hi'? Or was that a little too forgiving?"

"Christ, he's just a kid," Emma fires back. "And maybe if you weren't responsible for fucking up an entire population, he'd get over it faster."

"That's more like it," Regina says with a sneer, leaning in close enough for the upturned collar of her trench coat to brush Emma's ever-present leather jacket. "More honest, wouldn't you say?"

"Whatever you say," Emma says, and the quiver in her jaw suggests she wants to pull back, but defiance is keeping her in place. "Some of us have work to do."

"You're not driving, are you dear?" Regina asks sweetly, forcing an expression of faked concern.

"Why?" Emma asks, her fingers twitching around the travel mug.

"Because you brought your own coffee to the diner," Regina points out. "Which means if I took a sip, I'd find it well-spiked with whisky. Maybe brandy, if you're feeling adventurous."

"Listen," Emma growls. "I don't care what you think you know about me, but if you come after my job-"

"You'll what?" Regina presses. "Show up at my house with a gun again?" She pauses, runs a solitary fingertip down the zipper seam on Emma's jacket. "Because I think we both know how that ends, Miss Swan."

"Go to hell," Emma says, turning away.

"Enjoy your walk," Regina calls after her, smirking all the way to the counter.

* * *

The simple errands take longer than Regina intends, not least because the flush of victory from besting Emma leads Regina to take a walk past the school. Morning break comes soon enough, and although she's quite sure that Henry sees her, he ignores her as bluntly as every other time.

That brings the flush of rage back, and she attempts to walk it off with a trip to the cemetery, picking flowers from the public gardens to lay in her mausoleum. Without Daniel here it's finally just a tomb, another empty space cleared of everything but her father's bones and a few dusty relics that these peasants don't understand the potential of; Regina's in no mood to divulge any more of her secrets.

Eventually the chill gets to her through her trench coat that's a couple of months too light for the weather. She used to be better at these little details, but her head is still hurting and the memories of Emma Swan in her bed are a particularly lurid annoyance on top of that.

She makes it to the grocery store at last, throwing the few essentials and even more impulse purchases in her basket; it's not as though she has to shop responsibly for Henry's benefit these days, so the wine and the chocolate are indulgences she can afford.

Regina takes her place in line at the register and studiously ignores everyone around her. When her turn comes around, the cashier suddenly announces she's on break. Regina stares at the former wood nymph in disbelief, but bites her tongue. She looks at the bag boy expectantly, but he simply folds the paper bags back into a pile and Regina is forced to stalk across the store to find a manager.

"Are you closed?" She demands.

"Nope," the man says, not meeting her eye.

"Then can someone perhaps take money for the goods I'm trying to buy?" Regina demands. "Or should I consider them a gift?"

"You'll have to wait," he says, walking off. Regina is actually open-mouthed at the blatant disrespect, and she makes her mind up then and there. The alarm goes off as she marches straight out of the store, basket still slung over her arm, but she doesn't hesitate. She's almost all the way home by the time the police cruiser rolls to a halt beside her.

"Should you really be driving?" Regina calls back over her shoulder, not breaking stride.

"Regina," Emma warns, her voice practically a growl. "You want to hand over the basket? Or am I taking you down to the station?"

"Consider it my reward for terrible customer service," Regina says, finally stopping to sneer at Emma through her rolled-down window. "They can invoice me."

"Really? You want to pick a fight over twenty dollars' worth of groceries?" Emma kills the engine then, getting out of the car. "Fine, you leave me no choice."

Regina stares her down, unable to hide her amusement. She gives up the basket without a fight, laughing as Emma pulls Regina's arms behind her back and clicks the cuffs in place.

"You have the right to remain silent," Emma begins. "And it might be nice if you exercised it."

"I don't think that's part of reading someone Miranda," Regina snarks as Emma tries to manhandle her into the back of the Sheriff's car. Emma actually presses a hand on top of Regina's head to try and force her into the backseat, which is roughly when Regina decides she's had enough of this stupid town for one day. And Emma, who should really remember that children of True Love are like magical battery chargers, feels it coming just a moment too late.

The handcuffs fall to the floor in the foyer, loud enough to echo all the way up the stairs. Regina smiles at the basket she grabbed from the sidewalk and heads towards the kitchen. She might just have time for lunch before a pissed off Sheriff appears.

* * *

Regina is just finishing her turkey sandwich, eaten at the counter with a glass of milk, when the front door bangs open. It only takes Emma a minute to come storming into the kitchen.

"Back for more therapy?" Regina asks, far more comfortable on the turf where Emma so badly embarrassed herself last night. "Did you need me to take your gun?" she asks, in a babyish voice chosen to rile Emma even further; it's quite clearly working. "Would you like to discuss your _feelings_? You must have mistaken me for a bug."

"Give me the groceries," Emma grunts. "And I can be done with you for the day."

"Already used some," Regina says, gesturing towards the remnants of her lunch. "Will you take a check?"

"Dammit, Regina," Emma is really struggling with her anger now. "Can't you just make it easy for once? Can't you just be a fucking human being?"

"Do you need a drink?" Regina says in mocking sympathy. "Only, I notice your hands are trembling."

"If you won't let me arrest you," Emma says, her voice suddenly cool. "I'll have no choice but to subdue you. Or shall I just tell Henry about you using magic again, hmm?"

"You wouldn't," Regina accuses. "You can barely cope with him as it is, do you really want to remove me as an option?"

"What happened to helping me?" Emma demands, and it sounds almost choked. "What about last night?"

"Oh," Regina says, and the laugh bubbles up before she can stop herself. "I forget what it's like with people like you. Like kicked puppies, you get carried away at the first sign of indulgence."

"Fuck you," Emma says, moving in to restrain Regina's arms again. Regina's still heaving with laughter, unable to concentrate on a spell. It's why she doesn't see the raised knee coming towards her legs, only feels the impact as her legs crumple and her knees hit the tile floor, hard.

"What the hell?" Regina gasps, eyes watering at the unexpected pain. Emma's grip isn't on her arms now, but rather tangled in Regina's dark hair, leaving her almost no room to move.

"I've had enough," Emma says, her voice barely more than a monotone. She sounds every bit as exhausted as Regina feels. "Keep resisting arrest," Emma warns, and suddenly Regina feels cool metal at the base of her neck. "See what happens to you."

"This is police brutality," Regina growls, already flushed at the indignity of it. "And I bet that gun isn't even loaded."

"Who's gonna give a damn, huh?" Emma asks. "I wouldn't even need to make up an excuse about you attacking me. Never mind justification... if I pull this trigger they'll give me a parade."

"Then do it," Regina spits. "Or does the poor little drunk bitch need even more liquid courage first?"

The silence is so sudden, so bruising, that Regina thinks she's finally done it: she's provoked someone into killing her. She takes a deep breath and holds it, willing the pressure of the gun's muzzle to bite just a little deeper into the vulnerable skin of her neck, wishing it would be over. But a moment later the gun is gone, whisked away by those unsteady hands.

"I'm not going to kill you," Emma says, but a moment later the metal ridge is back, pressed against her temple. "Or at least, it won't be on purpose when I do."

"Coward," Regina spits. "Just like your family. They don't "murder", do they? But the bodies pile up, all the same."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Emma snaps.

"I'd say the trail of the dead you and your mother left disagrees," Regina taunts. "Or have you forgotten your little vacation already?"

"Shut up," Emma says. "Or do you really want me to start talking about your beloved mother and all the stories she told us about you?"

Regina clams up fast at the mention of Cora, a reflex she doesn't think she'll ever be able to shake.

"Do it, then," she says after a moment. "Just make sure you clean the mess up afterwards. The house goes to Henry, after all."

She's so busy goading Emma that Regina forgets to be scared. Right up until the moment Emma cocks the safety with her thumb, and then a chill runs down Regina's spine so fast that she worries for a moment she'll lose control of her body altogether.

"Beg me," Emma growls, twisting the muzzle hard against Regina's temple. "Beg me not to pull the fucking trigger."

"Go to hell," Regina says quite calmly, and in that moment inspiration strikes. It's not hard to tell that Emma's usual reactions are sluggish, dulled by hangover and alcohol alike. So when Emma eases up just a fraction on the pressure, Regina turns her head fast enough to give herself whiplash.

Regina swallows, once, and then presses her lips against the muzzle of the gun.

She can feel her lipstick smear against the rough metal, coating it in her favorite shade of red. It takes a moment to gather the nerve, but Regina flicks her gaze upwards to see a dumbfounded Emma Swan.

"What are you doing?" Emma whispers. The tremble in her arm makes the gun move against Regina's mouth.

"Do it," Regina challenges again, and with her lips already parted to speak, she slips the gun barrel past them, her mouth forming a natural pout around the cold metal. It doesn't taste as strange as she thought, the metallic taste on her tongue is oddly familiar. It tastes like the after-effects of magic, and Regina closes her eyes for a second to shut out the memory.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Emma mutters, even though they both know the answer. Regina expected a hasty removal of the gun, but Emma appears transfixed, watching Regina's mouth inch along the barrel, lewd and uncompromising. "Jesus," Emma says, apparently to herself, and then the gun is gone, bumping Regina's teeth as Emma pulls it out.

But Regina is too quick for her, scrambling up off her knees, using Emma's hips for hastily-grabbed leverage.

"Come on, Sheriff," Regina taunts. Anyone else might apologize now, try to claw back to something like safety, but Regina's tasted oblivion now and she wants it. Emma, who takes sons and happy endings-who takes and takes and pretends that she doesn't-is damn well going to give her this.

"You want me to kill you?" Emma demands, looking at the gun in her hand like she's never seen it before. She looks queasy, and ordinarily Regina would enjoy that, but she needs someone who can hold their nerve right now.

"It would be so easy," Regina says, and she's using the coaxing tone that used to be reserved for Henry's bath-time (and for Snow, spoiled Snow who never did anything until Regina pleaded with her, how very like her Emma turned out to be.) "You've killed before."

Emma blanches at the mention of it. Regina resists the smirk of victory that threatens to form, but it takes considerable effort.

"Here," she says, clutching Emma's bony wrist where it protrudes from another ugly jacket. There's no resistance as Regina guides the gun towards her chest, pressing the muzzle over her heart. "Just pull the trigger. You must have fantasized about it. God knows I dreamt of killing you."

"Why haven't you?" Emma demands, but she doesn't move the gun. "I mean, I know it would have broken your curse, but after that..."

"Henry," Regina says, in a strangled voice. "He'll forgive you for this. But not the other way around. I still hope that, in time..."

"I didn't fantasize about killing you," Emma says, green eyes darkening as her free hand grips Regina's shoulder, a pinching grip that's going to leave bruises. "Hurting you, maybe. And other things."

"Other things?" Regina asks, and it actually sounds innocent in the echoing space of her kitchen.

"Like this," Emma breathes, and with the gun pressed between them still, she leans in just enough to kiss Regina lightly on the lips. With a snarl, Regina nips at her bottom lip in return.

"I didn't ask you to kiss me," Regina says.

"But you asked me to point a gun at you," Emma counters, and it sounds so reasonable that Regina can't even force herself to smirk. "So I don't think we should listen to you any more."

"I-" Regina protests, but Emma kisses her again, and this time the barrel of the gun digs in hard enough to bruise against the soft swell of Regina's breast. She surrenders, just a little, and grabs Emma's ass with one hand, squeezing through the well-worn denim with intent.

"Not waiting," Emma says with a shake of her head, the moment Regina breaks the kiss and nods towards the door. "Do I still need this?" She asks, tapping the warming metal against the front of Regina's shirt.

"Oh, yes," Regina says, and really the words are barely more than an exhalation. "I insist."

"How?" Emma asks, and she's wide-eyed with genuine curiosity, maybe even a healthy bit of fear, too.

"I..." Regina fumbles for words for a moment, the rising excitement and dread competing in the back of her throat. She squeezes her eyes shut to make the demand. "Just... make me scared."

"Nothing scares you," Emma accuses, but they can both hear the lie. "At least..."

She raises the gun and presses the muzzle in the center of Regina's forehead. Regina swallows audibly, the trickle down her spine more like a gush this time.

"Strip," Emma commands, and there's no trace of the Savior in her voice. "Slowly."

Regina wants to defy her, wants to push again because whatever hold Emma has on herself right now has to be hanging by a thread. But oh, the fresh mortification when the gush this time is between Regina's thighs, because whatever else she wants from Emma, part of Regina definitely wants something more satisfying than violence.

She reaches for the button on her shirt with trembling hands, and no amount of silently scolding herself will still them. Emma doesn't complain, flexing her fingers around the handle and the trigger, making Regina jump just a little.

"Good," Emma murmurs, her eyes barely straying from Regina's face, despite a second and third button slipping free. "Don't stop."

Emma doesn't need Regina to guide her movements now, just to keep getting naked. With a flick of her wrist, Emma tilts the weapon and draws it carefully over the arch of Regina's eyebrow, lingering over the scar that's almost hidden by foundation. Emma's hand keeps going seemingly of its own volition, tracing the line of Regina's jaw, jumping just slightly when that makes a muscle twitch in Regina's flawless cheek.

Regina's parting her mouth to speak when Emma silences her with a press of the gun against those full lips again.

"Tsk tsk," Emma scolds her. "You know better than that by now, Regina."


	3. Chapter 3

The silk blouse falls to the floor, a puddle of steel blue around Regina's navy pumps. She feels her cheeks burn with something like shame, but it can't compare to the heat that's building between her thighs.

"Skirt," Emma commands, and Regina feels her hands moving to the zipper before she can think about it. The gun moves again, this time twisting against the soft flesh beneath Regina's chin. The navy material falls on top of the shirt, and Regina finds herself wishing she'd worn something more substantial, something that wouldn't leave her already trembling in her lingerie and stockings in her own kitchen. Emma, however, is raking her eyes up and down, clearly enjoying the view.

"The counter," Emma snaps, clearly embarrassed at having been caught staring so noticeably. "Palms flat, and bend."

"Go to hell," Regina snipes again, but her heart isn't in it. She can already feel her knees tensing in anticipation, her own body reacting to the promise of what Emma might have in store for her. Regina's not entirely sure she won't be left mortified and wanting here on her kitchen counter, but it's a risk she's all too willing to take.

"Move," Emma says, and although she takes the gun back to allow it, tucking the weapon momentarily in the waistband of her skin-tight jeans. When Regina resists a moment longer, out of sheer, dumb principle, she soon finds Emma's hand tugging at her hair.

"That hurts," Regina hisses, but she bends under the force of Emma's grip, and when Regina places her palms on the counter to brace herself, she swears silently that it's just instinct.

"Good," Emma grunts, and when she moves fully behind Regina she isn't slow in kicking her feet further apart. "Maybe you'll learn a damn lesson."

"I doubt you have anything to teach me," Regina bites back, unable to stop herself just like so many times before.

"Really?" Emma asks, her knuckles suddenly trailing up Regina's inner thigh. As she crosses to the opposite leg, it's not skin but cool metal that Regina feels touching her. She gasps, forgetting herself for a moment.

"You're not-" Regina starts to question, but the thought dissolves in another sharp gasp as the metal trails north again, this time pressing against the silk of her underwear with all too clear intent. "Fuck," she mutters into the crook of her arm practically able to hear the smirk that must now be present on Emma's stupid, gorgeous face.

Emma's fingers replace the gun a moment later, once she's satisfied that Regina isn't trying to wriggle out of position.

"Soaked through already?" Emma sighs, and it sounds almost dreamlike. "I should have guessed."

"Don't flatter yourself," Regina says through gritted teeth, but then the pads of Emma's fingertips press a little harder on top of Regina's clit, and she decides to stop fighting that particular battle quite so hard. She's burning, all over, with the need for something more than teasing.

"You know you deserve to be punished, right?" Emma asks, and the tenderness in her voice is as shocking as it is uncomfortable. The second's hesitation that says _Emma is a good person_, that betrays her unfairly gained knowledge of everything that Regina is and what she's already lived through.

"Yes," Regina snarls, squeezing her eyes closed against the stinging of tears that she will not shed.

The crack of Emma's palm against her ass is the response, and Regina jumps at the contact, almost stumbling in the heels that Emma hasn't told her she can take off yet. Another smack lands before Regina can catch her breath, on the other cheek this time, and this time she can't bite back the little cry of pain.

"I thought you'd hold out longer," Emma mocks. "Or at least have a higher tolerance." She rains the blows one after the other, her fingers tensed and flicking upwards as each slap lands, making it sting as much as possible; clearly, she's done this before.

"I can take it," Regina taunts, shifting her hips, letting them roll suggestively into the next touch of Emma's palm. "If you can hold out."

The next smack is particularly vicious, right on the overly sensitive skin at the very top of Regina's thigh. That one she pulls away from instinctively, hissing through her teeth at the flourish of pain.

Emma chuckles at that, clearly too cocky in what she thinks is a victory. Regina feels the defiance take hold then, and she braces herself with a white-knuckled grip. Momentum on her side, she turns quickly to deflect Emma's next move, grabbing blindly at her wrists.

"Earn it," Regina challenges, pulling those wrists further apart to steal a kiss from Emma's waiting lips. There's no affection in it, not in the firm pressure or the invading swirl of her tongue. Emma attempts to kiss back, but Regina's already in retreat, relinquishing Emma's mouth only after nipping sharply at her bottom lip.

"You're the one who resisted arrest," Emma reminds her, just a little breathless, but not fighting her way out of Regina's grip just yet. "And the one who still wants me to fuck her. I don't have to earn anything, not when you're so willing to bend over and let me take whatever I want."

Regina feels the protest forming, but her comfortable grip on Emma is lost in a sudden tangle of limbs, and with a shift in gravity Regina finds herself landing hard against the counter, face down again. In a matter of seconds, Emma has restrained her, and Regina kicks out uselessly, unable to shake her off.

"I really am qualified for the Sheriff's job," Emma teases. "Keep pushing me and you'll find out all the other ways I can have you taken down, pinned and completely at my mercy."

"Bitch," Regina spits, already wishing she could press her thighs together to alleviate some of the building pressure. Emma's leg firmly between makes it impossible, though. Her careless insult makes Emma wrench Regina's arm just a little harder, making her shoulder sing out in a fresh jolt of pain.

"Clearly you can't be trusted," Emma sighs, sounding for all the world like a disappointed parent; it's enough to make Regina's heart sink but she shakes it off. She hears the cuffs before she sees them, although only one is fastened this time. She's about to question Emma's restraint techniques when Regina finds herself being bodily lifted up onto the counter, the cool marble a shock to her mostly-exposed skin.

Emma wastes no time in flipping Regina onto her back, before the other cuff is attached to the sturdy metal handle of the counter's top drawer. With her arm extended out to the side, it's not enough to hold Regina, but it does give her pause. (She's trying desperately not to think of crucifictions, of the lion in the books she once read to Henry that told the same story, just a little cuter.) As she prepares a mocking remark, her shoe is pulled off and a stocking is unceremoniously yanked down her leg.

A moment later, both of Regina's wrists are firmly tethered past the edge of the worktop to the drawers that were intended as nothing more than a design feature, and she strains futilely in an attempt to free herself.

"Better," Emma pronounces, finally shedding her leather jacket. She takes her gun from her waistband again, and lays it down by Regina's hip. The badge follows, its shiny gold surface mocking Regina as it catches the afternoon light and reflects against the ceiling. "Shame my nightstick is still in the car," Emma mutters, and if she's trying to make Regina shiver, it works. "Still, I can always go out and get it."

"But that," Emma says as she walks around the counter, out of Regina' sightline. "Isn't what you're hoping I'll fuck you with, is it?"

There's a rustle of fabric as Emma's top apparently comes off, and Regina hears the zipper on the jeans come down next, before a less than dignified wrestle with the tight denim begins. She's almost rolling her eyes when Emma finishes with her task, kicking her boots against the counter hard enough to make Regina jump again.

Still Emma doesn't come back into view, though, and Regina bites her lip in frustration. There's movement as Emma makes her way around the room on bare feet, and drawers open and close while Regina lies there, not so patiently waiting.

Just as Regina is ready to break the silence, Emma mutters "that'll do" and comes back to her place by Regina's legs. In her hands now Emma holds a chef's knife and a more pedestrian pair of kitchen scissors. She places them wordlessly next to the gun and badge, before unhooking her bra and shimmying out of plain black cotton panties.

"What-" Regina is asking, but Emma raises a finger in warning, before climbing up on the counter with surprising grace. On her hands and knees she leans over Regina, and it's still more menacing than intimate.

"Not so much with the questions, Regina," Emma warns. "You haven't earned them, either."

Regina doesn't get time to speak again before Emma has a firm grip on her chin, forcing Regina to look directly at her. Emma runs her thumb over Regina's lips a few times, apparently lost in thought, before pressing the finger into Regina's mouth.

"Suck," she commands. Regina bares her teeth for a moment, grazing Emma's skin, but she stops herself from biting down. When Regina's tongue touches the tip of the thumb, she surrenders and closes her lips around it, sucking slowly for a long minute before adding swirls of her tongue. Emma watches curiously, before smiling darkly at the power she holds. It's a seductive moment that Regina remembers all too well.

When she pulls her hand away, Regina fixes her mouth into a slight pout. She has no idea how much of the day has already ebbed away, as she lies trapped in her own kitchen.

"You know," Emma whispers, bending low once more to speak the words right against Regina's ear. "I can do anything I want to you now." Regina doesn't point out that she could magic herself free, if she so wished, partly because she has no intention of doing it, and partly because she isn't sure she has enough in the tank after her earlier disappearing act. Magic works differently here, and it certainly runs out a hell of a lot faster.

Then Emma's nails are grazing a line down Regina's throat, sharp enough to no doubt be leaving some angry red lines. It's only after Emma traces the line of Regina's collarbone that the fingers return to her throat, and this time there's no teasing touch, but rather the firm grip of fingers intent on pressing down hard.

"Don't you dare," Regina manages to threaten before running out of breath.

"Yeah?" Emma asks, watching Regina's face intently. She can feel her eyes starting to water, and the flush on her skin. "Because a little while ago you were downright daring me to hurt you. To kill you, in fact."

She releases her grip for a few seconds, and Regina greedily gulps down some air before Emma tightens her grip again.

"Seems to me," Emma continues. "That somebody needs to make up her fucking mind."

Regina shakes her head a little, feeling her chest get tighter as Emma refuses to release her grip and they stay like that for what feels like an impossibly long time, until darkness starts to creep in at the edges of Regina's vision, and the watering eyes turn into falling tears of something like relief.

That's when Emma lets go, kissing where her fingers have just been, tracing what will soon be impressive bruises with her tongue. She detours to the hollow at the base of Regina's throat and proceeds to lavish more attention with teeth and tongue, and it feels so base, so territorial, that Regina wants to scream. Instead, she feels herself grow even wetter between her thighs, and hates herself for it between desperate, gasping breaths.

"Now," Emma says. "I know what you want, Regina. In fact, I know exactly what you need. But you're going to do what I want first. And if you don't do it well, I'll leave you here, tied up and desperate like the slut you so clearly are."

"I'm nobody's slut," Regina growls, but Emma laughs it off. There's a pinch at Regina's hipbone and then fingers, those same bruising fingers are stroking between her legs, this time under her panties.

"The fact that you're dripping wet seems to disagree," Emma points out. "Slut," she adds, with particularly cruel emphasis. "You'll notice," Emma says as she withdraws her fingers, prompting a pathetic whimper that Regina can't hide. "That I tied you up in a certain way, right? You see, I didn't want your arms getting in my way," she continues, grabbing Regina's hair hard enough to make her wince. "When I do this."

It takes a moment or two of awkward shuffling and Emma folding her calves under Regina's arms but then Regina's whole world is reduced to Emma's wet flesh just inches from her face, and she can't think of anything but how badly she wants to touch it.

"Well?" Emma asks, wrenching her grip on Regina's hair until she cries out. "What are you waiting for?"

Regina takes a deep breath and shifts slightly to get herself in position. She's more nervous than she can remember being in a long time as she extends her tongue and takes that first, tentative taste.

Emma sighs contentedly above her, and Regina decides to hell with anything like nerves. She expresses some of her current frustration in firm lashes of her tongue, almost mimicking the slaps Emma delivered earlier, albeit with far more pleasant results.

"Oh, you're good," Emma sighs. "I'll give you that, Regina."

Regina nips lightly with her teeth for that, because the resistance is absolutely worth it, at least until Emma yanks at her hair again. That's warning enough for Regina, who focuses her attentions back on pleasing Emma.

"Good girl," Emma mocks, which should make Regina stop the rhythmic circling of Emma's clit with the tip of her tongue, but they're both too far gone for that. Instead, Regina starts to suck, because if Emma's getting off on control then Regina is absolutely going to make her lose it.

The tension in Emma's thighs suggests that she's trying desperately to hold out, but Regina is relentless and gets her there, gasping in surprise and slapping her hand uselessly against the table.

"Bitch," Emma hisses, but it doesn't sound like her heart is in it. "You're probably feeling pretty pleased with yourself right now, aren't you?" she adds, catching her breath and unfolding herself, slithering over Regina's body until she's back on her feet.

"Maybe," Regina admits, licking her lips a few times, tasting as much of Emma as she can. She'd shrug if her arms weren't too tightly bound to allow it.

"Time these came off," Emma says quite calmly, yanking Regina's soaked panties down her thighs with no ceremony at all. "And as for your bra..."

It takes a moment, but Regina follows Emma's gaze to where her dangerous toys are assembled.

"You could have just taken it off," Regina grumbles, trying not to shift at the mention of something sharp against her skin.

"Where's the fun in that?" Emma asks, and then all of a sudden she's leaning over Regina again, sharp knife glinting in the sunlight.

"Do you think you could cut out a heart?" Regina asks, in the hope that in disguises how shallow her breathing has gotten. "Do you think you would have the courage?"

"I know you didn't," Emma fires back as her eyes darken. "I knew that long before I knew who you were. We tell that story here, too."

"Delegating," Regina lies, unhappy at how Emma is still the one person who never cowers, who never accepts what Regina says without some kind of fight. Even when Henry lay in the hospital, when Regina felt the confession pulled from her against every scrap of her resistance, Emma still looked ready to deny it, to say that the sky was green simply because Regina called it blue.

"Well I," Emma continues, as though Regina hadn't answered at all. "Prefer the hands-on approach. If I want something done, I do it myself, iyour Majesty/i."

The scorn in the words is almost enough to distract Regina from the cool steel slipping under her bra strap. She expects Emma to linger, but the strap is pulled taut and sliced through in one determined motion. Suddenly the obsessive attention to detail in keeping house feels foolish, including the weekly sharpening of every kitchen knife Regina's come to rely on, even these past few weeks with no one to provide for but herself.

"Better," Emma breathes, and she stretches just a little to reach the other strap. For a moment it seems she's going to cut the rest off too, but she lays the knife in the slope between Regina's breasts and reaches behind her for the clasp instead.

Completely exposed now, Regina somehow feels better, more at ease. Her life has been lived in costumes, intentional and otherwise, but when she's naked she knows for sure who she is. Unfortunately it seems that Emma Swan knows too, judging by the glint in her eye as she picks up the knife once more, climbing back onto the counter to loom over Regina.

"I could," Emma says quietly, meeting Regina's gaze with steady eyes. To finish her point, she drags the knife until the tip is prodding the skin over Regina's heart. "I've never told anybody this, but..." The knife turns slowly, like a roasting spit over a fire, but still the skin doesn't break.

"Nah," Emma changes her mind. "You don't get confessions. You don't get secrets."

"Oh dear," Regina mocks, her eyes never moving from the blade. "Is the princess worried she's not as good as she should be?"

"Go to hell," Emma snaps, but her hand holds steady on the knife. A moment later it falls with a clatter against the marble counter.

Regina closes her eyes, takes the breath, and sure enough a moment later the gun is pressed under her chin. Here they are again. She waits for another insult, another threat, but nothing comes. Just the harsh sounds of their breathing, slightly out of sync, overlapping and somehow dissonant. Regina wonders what it will sound like if she stops, and she holds her breath to find out.

But the air bursts forth from her lungs as the gun starts to move. Emma is straddling Regina's thigh now, already rocking gently, so very wet against Regina's skin.

"I'm going to fuck you now," Emma says, and there's a strange, sing-song quality to her voice.

"Do it," Regina whispers, her eyes still closed.

The fingers press inside first, a warming up of sorts. Regina bites her lip just in time and no sound escapes, but Emma must see the contorted pleasure on her face. It would be enough, it would, because Regina is already close and when Emma touched her the other night after such a long spell without real, human contact, it awakened something in Regina.

But Emma makes her greedy, and Regina rolls her hips upwards in a silent request for more.

"You know it's loaded, right?" Emma asks, but she presses the muzzle against Regina's wet flesh anyway. Regina sighs in response.

"Fuck. Me," she grits out eventually, when neither gun nor Emma moves. Her shamefaced demand is met instantly, and she gasps at how good the metal feels as it slides slowly deeper. There's something reassuring in how solid it is, how it's already warming to the temperature of her body. And yes, how if she's wrong to trust Emma, even for a second, this could be the end of her.

Regina's always been more comfortable around death than sex, so it seems somehow inevitable that the two would someday clash. Emma groans softly, and when Regina opens her eyes she finds Emma staring, rapt, at what her hand is doing between Regina's thighs.

"Everything you hoped for?" Regina can't resist asking. Emma doesn't look up, doesn't answer, simply moves the barrel of the gun a little faster, and just a little deeper on the next thrust.

The friction is good, just how Regina likes it without seeming like too much. She's angry, really, that Emma should know her body this well already, but as with everyone 'good' perhaps it's more dumb luck and blessings from an unfair universe, rather than anything approaching skill.

Until Emma's thumb presses hard against Regina's clit, and she has to bite back a cry as her hips arch upwards.

"Careful," Emma warns, and there's mockery in the word.

That's when Regina loses her grip on the details, surrendering instead to the sensation of being steadily, deliciously fucked. Emma keeps her rhythm light but not predictable, pulling new sensations and mewling cries from Regina time and again, grinding her own body against Regina's tensed thigh for a second release.

Somewhere in the noise, in the constant motion and the sweat that's dripping from Regina's back, from her forehead, Emma speaks again. It draws Regina's focus like a laser, the only thing she can think about besides the hard pressure inside her, sliding against her g-spot over and over again.

"I could pull the trigger," she says, and Regina doesn't want to think about why, but the flexing of Emma's upper arm like she's about to follow through on that threat is what sends Regina hurtling over the edge. She arches her back so far that her shoulders scream in silent protest, but it's worth it, oh so very worth it, as the pleasure crashes through her in wave after wave, Emma not relenting for a second on the pace with either hand.

When the sensation finally stops, and her body begins to calm, Regina finds that her throat is raw from what may well have been screaming. She feels hazy, as though under some kind of enchantment, and every flicker of movement in her limbs seems to be at a command other than her own. Usually that would panic her beyond belief, but she's too exhausted to care.

"There you go," Emma says, as one binding and then the other releases, meaning Regina can wrap her tingling arms around herself. Long moments later, she pulls herself to sitting and then stands on shaky legs. She doesn't look at the wet mark left on the counter, doesn't meet Emma's eye for even a second.

No, all Regina does before stumbling out of the room is grab her purse and extract a twenty dollar bill with trembling fingers.

"For the groceries," she explains, and flees just as fast as she can, naked and in search of the sanctuary that only another room with a locking door can provide.

* * *

She forgets to lock the door, in the end, and that isn't even her last mistake.

Slipping her robe on against the chill of the tiled room, Regina raids her en suite cabinets and shelves for one of the pill bottles she knows is hidden away there. Even without Henry in the house she's been careful to keep the orange plastic carefully out of sight, tucked into corners and hidden behind other things.

It's why she's too distracted to notice Emma in the doorway, not until it's too late and Regina is triumphantly clutching a pill bottle in her hand.

"It's polite to share," Emma says, sashaying into the room, mostly redressed and pressing Regina bodily against the counter. "Or did you want to lecture me about dependency again? 'Cause that would be really interesting."

"I have back pain," Regina offers weakly, but she can't even convince herself as their eyes meet in the mirror.

"Gimme," Emma says, holding out her hand in expectation.

Regina sighs, pops the cap, and shakes two pills into each of their hands in turn.


	4. Chapter 4

"We should talk," Emma offers, after dry-swallowing the pills. She ignores the violent trembling in her hands, shoving them into the pockets of her hastily replaced leather jacket.

"No," Regina says, shaking her head. "But you should leave."

"I could," Emma concedes, watching like a hawk as Regina makes a production of picking up a water glass and sipping from it, trying to make out that there's something legitimate about the pills she's popping. "But aren't you tired of that? The big dramatic moment, and then one or both of us running off as if that's actually going to solve anything?"

"You're not my problem to solve," Regina snaps, and Emma just smiles at the way Regina moves gingerly across the room. "I was going to have a bath."

"I don't mind sharing," Emma mutters, but her heart isn't in the suggestion. That sort of thing feels way too serious, too far away from what she's willing to do with another person.

"Just go," Regina sighs. "We can... coffee, tomorrow. If we absolutely must."

"Sure," Emma agrees. "Right after you drop off payment at the store. You already picked out the twenty."

* * *

Emma slips out through the kitchen door, fairly sure that there's no one around to see her even in the early evening, but it's not worth the risk and fumbling for an explanation. She checks her watch, noting that her shift was officially over half an hour ago, meaning Mary Margaret will be watching the clock and preparing dinner for Henry and Emma, while David readies himself to take the nightshift.

Of course, dinner can always be reheated after Emma stops off at the Rabbit Hole for a drink or two. Or maybe Granny's for a beer, since Ruby always slips her the second one for free.

No, Emma thinks, unlocking the Bug and slipping into the driver's seat. It's not like she really needs a drink anyway. This isn't a problem, no matter what Regina in all her bitchy glory says.

Emma learned to drink because it's easier to sleep in an uncomfortable car after you neck a fifth of bourbon, and because sometimes chasing bad guys and having no insurance means treating pain in ways that don't come with nurses and injections.

No matter how nice everyone else turned out to be, and despite the fact that the gnawing feeling of wondering about her parents is finally quieted, Emma still feels entitled to a little more time and space to process what feels a lot like a house falling on her, practically overnight. And that was before the catastrophe of having sex with Regina on two separate occasions, something Emma's been trying to deny was inevitable for about a year now.

She leans back in the seat, smirking at how her haphazard parking has taken out some of Regina's overly-neat flower beds. Emma closes her eyes for a moment, feeling the warm buzz as the pills start to kick in, because of course Regina Mills has the good stuff. Not that Emma bothered to ask what was actually in the bottle, but the building high feels a lot like Vicodin, and that's something she can definitely work with.

Shifting the car into first gear, Emma pulls out onto Mifflin Street and considers her options. The obvious choice is collecting Henry from his grandparents, filling up on some hearty stew or maybe some roast chicken because Mary Margaret knows how much her daughter enjoys that.

Instead, Emma steadies the steering wheel with her knees, firing off a quick one-handed text to her mother about a migraine and asking if Henry can spend the night there.

She already knows it's going to be fine, so she switches off her phone and takes the turning to park up behind the bar. Ruby's a lovely girl, but Emma feels like maybe the Regina thing is written all over her face right now, and sharing is sure as hell not an option. A quiet drink amongst strangers, and Emma can get her head back in the game.

Before she gets out, Emma locks her gun in the glove compartment, and vows not to think about what she's just done with it, ever again.

* * *

Rolling out of bed with a hangover is a hell of a lot easier without an eleven year-old shrieking from downstairs about his cereal choices, Emma has to admit. She's showered and dressed for work in record time, trying not to gag as she sips her own hastily-made coffee and chews on a stale kruller from two days ago.

She expects Regina to cancel, or flat out ignore that they ever agreed to have coffee in the cold light of day, but there's a pointed little text mid-morning that says _Granny's, 2pm_.

Emma is waiting in a window seat half an hour early, and smiles at the sight of the black Mercedes rolling to a stop outside the minimart.

Regina takes her sweet time about going inside and slapping the twenty on the counter, but the moment it's done, Emma waves Ruby down and orders a black coffee for her incoming companion.

* * *

It takes three sips for the first insult, and less than half a mug for a full-blown fight to develop. Emma closes her eyes and tries to count to ten, but Regina is stuck on this pissy little rant about how Henry needs a responsible adult in his life and that's apparently Emma's tipping point for the day.

"We were right to do this," Emma sighs, when there's a gap in the conversation for half a second. "Because it reminded me why nothing should ever, ever happen between us."

"On that much we can agree," Regina sniffs, sipping her coffee and frowning at the mug.

Emma should resist the impulse, but she pulls her service weapon from its holster then, laying it on the table and watching Regina's eyes widen in panic, before her features contort in anger.

"Don't worry," Emma whispers, leaning across the narrow table. "I cleaned it up real good."

"You can't... I won't allow you to..." Regina is sputtering, and Emma wonders if that's a spell she's casting in the fumbling spaces between words. She isn't going to let that happen, for Henry's sake more than anything else.

"You can take Henry after school today," Emma decides, leaving the corner that has hopefully afforded them some kind of privacy. "I'll let David and Mary Margaret know." She fires off a text as she leaves, gun back in its holster, and heads down the street to the dark privacy of The Rabbit Hole.

* * *

It's just one beer. Just one, because it's been a long and crappy day.

* * *

"What's this?" Emma asks, throwing her keys on the coffee table and shrugging her blue leather jacket from her shoulders. Her back is aching from a night spent in the Bug, and she only has thirty minutes to turn herself into someone clean and fit enough to patrol the town. "An intervention?"

Ruby looks up at her with those big, sad eyes and Emma's breath catches in her throat at the realization that her lame joke turned out to be right on the money.

"Are you kidding me?" She demands, meeting Mary Margaret's defiant gaze before turning on her father, who at least has the decency to look away. "No, seriously. Are you fucking kidding me?"

"Mom," Henry pipes up from the kitchen stool. Emma hadn't even noticed him when she came in. "Please, you have to listen to us."

"Kid, I know you think you're helping, but none of you have any idea what you're talking about," Emma says, and if she forgets to make it sound kind, well, the kid could do with a little bit of reality every now and then.

"We haven't seen you in two days, and you look like you slept in the gutter," David chimes in, but Emma rounds on him like she's about to throw a punch. Truth be told, her fingers kind of flex in the way that suggests she might, Daddy dearest or not.

"I made arrangements for Henry," Emma snarls, not caring about the way that Archie looks sideways at Granny, both of them perched uncomfortably on one of the battered sofas. "I am entitled to some time off. Can't I have a day to my damn self?"

"Of course you can," Mary Margaret says, getting up and pulling Emma into a truly awkward hug. "We just want you to be happy. And to raise your son as best as you can."

"Me raising Henry was never permanent," Emma says, closing her eyes so she doesn't have to see Henry's face in that moment. "He has a mother. We're just making sure she's still fit to look after him."

"But Emma-" Henry says, his voice pleading.

"She's your mom, kid," Emma reminds him. "She's your best chance."

"This is your hangover talking," Granny says firmly. She nods at Ruby, who gets up then and takes Emma by the arm, steering her to the one armchair in the apartment. It feels like she's been placed in front of the firing squad, and Emma tries to get up right away, stopped only by her mother's freakishly strong grip on her shoulder.

"It's for your benefit that you listen, Emma," Archie says, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose, looking about as nervous as she's ever seen him. "We really are all here to help you."

Emma thinks of the shower and the toothpaste that had been her only plans on walking back through the door, and considering she's outnumbered and outgunned, the quickest way to get those things is probably to nod along and let them think she gives a damn.

"Okay," she sighs. "So, what do I need to do?"

* * *

They're so relieved two hours later, when Emma departs for the bathroom with a smile and lots of muttered promises about getting better. She can hear them chattering as she starts the shower running, before ducking into her bedroom and having a quick drag from the bottle of Johnnie Walker stashed under her pillow.

What they don't know, after all, isn't really any of their goddamned business.

Emma pretends not to notice that the usual six pack of beer is no longer resting in the bottom of the fridge, or that the nice bottle of Scotch that Leroy gave her as an apology is conspicuously absent from the cupboard by the sink; they couldn't even let her have her own Lifetime movie melodrama of pouring it all down the sink. Instead she pours herself a big glass of orange juice and sits down to breakfast with Henry, who's pretending to read a comic, all the while sneaking glances at her. Seems everyone else has gone about their day now they're done patronizing Emma half to death.

"Shouldn't you be in school?" Emma asks, laying it on thick with the big smiles.

"Grandma says it's okay to skip art this morning," Henry replies. "But she says you should drop me off on your way to work."

"Any other instructions?" Emma continues, and she almost succeeds in not gritting her teeth.

"Just that we're having dinner there as usual, when you're done with your shift," Henry says. "I'm really glad you're trying to get better, Mom."

"Henry," Emma warns. "There's nothing wrong with me. And we've talked about you calling me Mom."

"You're ready for it," Henry says with his usual blithe confidence. "And you are my mom."

"Regina is your mom," Emma reminds him. "And I want you to start spending more time with her, okay?"

"Do I have to?" Henry whines. "I mean, I know she's trying to be better and all, but Grandpa teaches me swordfighting and-"

"Kid," Emma interrupts. "She's your mom. And you can't make her jump through all these hoops for you and not even go to see her."

"It's not my fault she's evil," Henry says, sulking now. "If she wasn't evil, I wouldn't have to tell her how to be good."

"We all know how to be good," Emma points out. "She just hasn't had a reason to be for a really long time."

"Why are you defending her?" Henry demands, throwing things into his backpack now, face screwed up in disgust.

Emma would answer him, if only she herself had any idea why.

* * *

The first two days are easy enough.

All those years of stealing booze and stashing it around her foster homes has come in handy, Emma is forced to admit, and if her family would treat her like an adult she wouldn't be reduced to hiding a bottle of Jack Daniels in one of her knee-high boots. Knowing she has the option takes the edge off, and besides, it's not that big a deal to go without for a day or two.

Also, apparently fairytale characters don't know that vodka is better stored in the freezer, so that's another little treasure trove for Emma to dip into, providing she keeps it out of sight behind the frozen peas that Henry will never touch. In fact, the only green thing he's eaten since moving in with Emma is some jello, and that's probably not in any manual about child nutrition.

The weather is still cool enough to excuse carrying a flask of coffee around, and just like Regina accused the other day, Emma spikes it heavily, although she only takes the occasional sip when the paperwork gets really dull. Thankfully the former mayor has gone back to keeping a low profile, not least because even she might blush at the sight of Emma after the things they've done to each other.

It's at the weekend that Emma caves, without the routine of work to fill her hours. Henry is in yapping mode, too, unable to shut up about some X-Men thing that's somehow connected to the Blue Fairy's magic and honest to God, Emma is praying for a mute button by Saturday afternoon.

"Hey kid," Emma snaps eventually, somewhere around the fiftieth mention of Wolverine. "I think it's time you paid your mom a visit."

"Only if you come too," Henry sighs, as though he's being sent a prison camp instead of a mansion.

"Whatever," Emma sighs, grabbing her keys and jacket before he can change his mind or kick up a fuss. Anything is worth buying a little peace and quiet right now, even facing Regina.

* * *

"Sheriff Swan," Regina says, opening the door like she's hosting a party and Emma's the only guest rude enough to turn up late.

"Are you busy?" Emma asks.

"You're not suggesting-" Regina looks genuinely amazed that Emma might have shown up to spend time with her, but that's replaced by a distinctly watery smile when Regina lays eyes on Henry, skulking behind Emma on the red brick path.

"Hi, Mom," Henry says, sounding like he's a hundred years old and he had to walk there on broken glass.

"Sweetheart," Regina hesitates with her arms open, before Henry takes the hint and shuffles into a half-hearted hug. Emma looks away, because the relief on Regina's face is too intimate to witness. "Are you staying for dinner? I can make anything you want."

"He is," Emma says, jumping in before Henry can disagree. "I mean, if that's okay with you."

"This is his home," Regina snaps. "Of course it's okay."

"Great," Emma replies, already backing up towards the path and her afternoon of freedom. "Just call me when he wants to be picked up."

"I can drop him off," Regina offers, and there's something almost kind in how she's resigned to giving him up again. "And if you want to sleep over, Henry... well, we'll see how the day goes."

"Thanks," Emma says, before jogging the rest of the way to her car.

* * *

Any last hope of a quiet few hours, trying not to think about how much she wants a drink, evaporates when Emma, hands trembling slightly as she unlocks her front door, finds Neal sitting on the sofa with a six-pack in hand.

"How did you-"

"I'm a thief, remember?"

"This isn't the deal we had," Emma groans, kicking off her shoes and performing a routine scan of her apartment to make sure her light-fingered ex hasn't pocketed anything. "Henry isn't even here."

"So he's with his mom?" Neal asks, offering a beer to Emma and putting his feet up on the coffee table. "Probably about time."

"If you're here to give me another lecture about how we can't take a kid away like that, you can shut up right now," Emma warns him, flopping down on the sofa next to her uninvited guest. "It's only about making sure he's okay."

"And that's only because you people think she's the problem," Neal reminds her. "Do you have cable?"

"No," Emma says, shoving his shoulder a little harder than she intended. "Doesn't daddy dearest provide all that?"

"It's a work in progress," Neal replies, and although nobody sees much of Gold or Belle these days, he's still spending time trying to repair things with his father.

"How did we end up so screwed up?" Emma asks, before taking a much-needed mouthful of beer.

"Our parents," Neal fires back, sipping at his own drink. "Which is probably why we're not qualified to raise anyone."

* * *

Emma tries to pick herself up off the floor when the knock at the door comes, but Neal is the first to react, stumbling towards it in just his jeans. Somewhere near the end of the vodka he'd declared the apartment too warm and started stripping off layers, and Emma reminded him just to be glad of the heat after too many nights spent sleeping rough and making do.

When she hears Regina's voice, though, Emma's blood freezes in her veins.

"Well," she hears Regina say. "Clearly this is a bad time."

"Hey, Dad," Henry chimes in, although he sounds a lot less chipper than usual. "Mom, are you-"

Emma's warned him about that, and she doesn't need to lay eyes on Regina right now to picture the flinching that must have just happened.

"Kid," Emma groans, picking herself up off the floor and turning the PJ Harvey down to a more acceptable level. "Didn't you want to stay with your mom?"

The door opens fully then, as Henry bundles his way past Neal with a quick hug. The kid stops short seeing the coffee table, littered with empty bottles and the Doritos that have formed Emma's food intake for the day.

"You promised," Henry whines, looking at her with such accusation that Emma wants to throw up. "You sat here and promised me. You promised everyone."

"Henry, you're just a kid," Emma says, and the hiccup in the middle of her words is unfortunate. "I'm a grown woman and I know what I'm doing."

"Mom?" Henry asks, just as Regina strides in, about to unleash hell on Emma for the scene they're all living through. "I think I want to sleep over after all."

"Come along then, dear," Regina says, her temper under control in a second. She rakes her eyes disapprovingly over Neal and Emma one more time, before departing with the kind of tight little smirk that makes Emma want to choke the breath right from her lungs.

"Well, shit," Neal says as the door slams shut. "That could have gone better."

"Get your clothes and get out," Emma orders, in no kind of mood for any more friends with the ex crap.

"Henry will forgive you, you know," Neal says. "Although at some point we're going to talk about you apparently having a drinking problem."

"My problem is that the jackass who dumped me has been drinking half my booze all day," Emma complains. "I'll fix it with the kid. But I'm really done with company right now."

"Fine!" Neal grumbles, pulling his shirt and sweater back on. "Regina seems as pleasant as ever. That woman needs to get laid."

"Trust me, even that doesn't help," Emma can't resist answering, slapping her hand over her mouth when she realizes what she's given away.

"Well, well, well," Neal says, chuckling as he moves towards the door. "I knew there had to be a reason you kept knocking me back."

"Don't flatter yourself," Emma calls after him, but he's already gone.

* * *

When there's a knock just before midnight, Emma strongly considers ignoring it. Either Neal has come back to mess with her, or Henry has ratted her out to her parents; neither seem particularly worth opening the door to.

The persistence of the person knocking forces Emma to answer, though, and she's more than a little surprised to see Regina standing there, face all pinched in anger.

"I'm taking Henry back," Regina announces, marching into Emma's living room like she owns the place. Maybe she did, at some point in Storybrooke's hazy past. "He's a little reluctant to agree right now, but a few days at home with me should do the trick. I'll let him see his grandparents, if he insists."

"You wouldn't," Emma says, but there's no confidence in the words as she swallows audibly. "One slip from you and Henry will remember exactly what you are."

"Wouldn't I?" Regina mocks, advancing on Emma like a hunter closing in on its prey. "You got drunk off your ass today with your criminal ex, knowing full well that I would be bringing Henry home to you. Not to mention that you don't have any right to him in the first place. Your 'custody' is nothing more than my indulgence of Henry's feelings."

"I'm the law in this town, remember," Emma threatens. "You're just a disgraced ex-mayor, who's only alive because I told the mob to stand down."

Regina lashes out then, and she doesn't even seem aware of her fingers flexing. The vodka bottle on the table explodes in a shower of glass, making both women jump. Emma watches, transfixed, as Regina picks up one large, curved shard of glass and examines it under the light. When she turns towards Emma once more, the threat is clear enough to have Emma backed up against her own living room wall, seemingly powerless to stop Regina's advance.

"You won't hurt me," Emma says, suddenly cocksure. "You won't even draw blood." Regina's response is to press the glass against Emma's throat, a mirror of Emma's own violent intent the other day.

Desperate then, Emma lunges. The glass is knocked flying from Regina's hand and it rattles on the hardwood floor.

"Told ya," Emma taunts.

Regina picks the glass up as Emma smirks in victory. It's short-lived as Regina draws the sharpest point over the palm of her own hand, disguising the cry of pain in a shuddering gasp.

"Don't test me," Regina says. "I'm not afraid of a little blood, Miss Swan."

"You're crazy," Emma accuses, reaching for Regina but only getting a handful of her blouse, which rips at the sudden pressure. "I'm the one everyone wants to put in therapy and hide the booze from, but you're just straight-up nuts, lady."

"You just don't like being caught," Regina says, pushing away from Emma and leaning against the kitchen counter. Seeing that her shirt is already ruined, Regina tears a strip from the hem, wrapping it tightly around her injured hand. She watches an escaped drop of blood roll down her finger, sucking it from the tip before it can fall.

Emma watches, horrified and turned on in roughly equal measure. There's a splash of blood on Emma's white tank top. 'As red as blood, as white as snow' she mutters to herself, wanting to laugh at the insanity of it all.

"I don't want around Henry when you're drinking," Regina admits. "I've been careful to shield him from anything like that. If you want to stay in his life, you'll abide by my rules now."

She beckons Emma forward, and despite herself, Emma feels her feet moving before she can tell them not to. It would be easy to point out that she can have Regina thrown in her own asylum with behavior like this, but the ripped blouse has exposed plenty of skin, and Emma is way beyond distracted already.

"But I do want you to fuck me," Regina confesses, nodding at her cleavage, inviting Emma to take a long, hard look.

Emma knows she still has some power here, that she can march Regina right over to the door and throw her out into the night. She can refuse for a hundred reasons, but none of those feel compelling in a fight against the ache between her thighs.

"Jealous because Neal was here?" Emma asks, feigning innocence. "Or have you been looking for an excuse all week?"

"Go to hell," Regina spits, but her fingers are already tugging at the bottom of Emma's tank top, as they fall into a brief, furious kiss that narrowly avoids the clashing of teeth.

"Stop," Emma moans, pulling Regina closer. "I...fuck," she gasps, as Regina grazes her teeth over Emma's collarbone. "I don't want to hurt you, not tonight."

"So don't," Regina murmurs against her skin. "But don't stop."

"Then we're taking this upstairs," Emma demands, her hands relentless in touching as much of Regina as she can.

"Fine," Regina says between heated kisses. "But I need to get back-"

"I wasn't asking you to stay," Emma points out as she leads Regina up the stairs to her bedroom.


	5. Chapter 5

"Emma?"

She groans at the sound of her name, and yanks a pillow over her head in response. Only trouble is, moving the pillow causes a dull thud and a grunt from someone else.

"Emma?" The voice is louder, booming in fact, and Emma reluctantly recognizes that it's her father.

"Hnnng," is her only response, and it's not enough to stop the thumping footsteps on the stairs.

"Emma, you need to get up," he's saying as the door creaks open, and it gives her just enough time to pull the sheets back up-and Jesus, how drunk was she that she just fell into bed naked, anyway?-"Henry just came to our house, and..."

The sudden pause is what finally makes Emma open her eyes and face the music. Her father looks much as he always does, like a advertisement brought to life, only this morning his cheeks are flushed a kind of burning red, and his mouth is hanging open just like Emma's was the first time she ever saw real magic performed.

She's just opening her mouth to say "hey, David," when someone else interrupts.

"Charming," Regina drawls. "Didn't anyone ever teach you it's impolite to stare? Well, you know what they say: once a peasant, always a peasant."

Well, shit.

Emma closes her eyes again, praying for the ground to open and swallow her up, or at least for a gallon of water to drink, while Regina casually slips back under the covers from where Emma unceremoniously dumped her on the floor.

"I can explain," Emma rasps after an uncomfortable minute.

"Not necessary," her father barks. "I was simply coming to tell you that Henry woke up alone at Regina's and came all the way across town to find us. Now we all know why."

"Wait!" Emma calls out as David turns away, clearly disgusted, and storms off down the stairs. She rolls out of bed without even looking at Regina, grabbing her fluffy bathrobe that was a Christmas gift from Mary Margaret, and chases after her angry father. This, at least, Emma has experience of from all her years in the system: trying to appease people who are disgusted with her.

"I don't think we should talk now," David says when she catches up to him, right by the apartment's front door. "I have a habit of saying things I regret."

"You and me both," Emma blurts out. "Listen, I really can explain..."

"I don't think you can," David says, rounding on her with ever-present threat of tears in his eyes. His denim jacket is pulled taut across his shoulders as he flexes his hands over and over, letting Emma see for the first time where that little habit comes from. "It's bad enough that it's... do I even need to start on why Regina is... but you are a princess, Emma. You have responsibilities, and there are expectations of you."

"What?" Emma demands, her own ire provoked by the idea that bedding a murderer isn't, apparently, the biggest problem.

"We're all going home someday," David says. "And when we do, we'll expect you to seek a suitable match with a prince or nobleman."

"But no princesses, is that what you're saying?" Emma asks. "Of course, I should have figured all that true love and understanding only applies to the cutie pie boy-girl crap. Nothing else about your stupid stories is fair or inclusive."

"They're not stories!" David roars. "They are our lives, and you should pay us some respect, young lady."

"How long have you been waiting to say that, hmm?" Emma is furious now, ready to lash out with her fists as much as her mouth. "You just keep giving me reasons to never, ever go back there."

"If your mother and I ask it of you, you will come with us. Or-"

"Or what?" Emma taunts. "You'll put me in a fucking wardrobe and abandon me again? I don't owe you shit."

"Like it or not, Emma, you are subject to our rule, too," David warns her. "We only want what's best for you."

"Your rule?" she fires back. "Aren't you some kind of sheep chaser? Come on, this is the real world."

"And this is why I should never have started this discussion," David says, hiding his face in his big hands. "Henry is fine. You can come and collect him later."

"That won't be necessary," Regina says from where she's standing on the stairs. Emma doesn't stop to wonder how much she overheard, because knowing Regina the answer will be 'every word'. "I'll collect Henry now and apologize for falling asleep here."

"Like hell you will!" David turns on Regina now, eyes blazing again.

"He is my son," Regina says quite calmly. "And need I remind you that both of us can safely cross the town boundary? If you want to continue to see your grandson, you'll stop testing my patience, not to mention my perfectly legal custody of him."

Regina miraculously looks put together again, her makeup scrubbed off and leaving her fresh-faced, with her ripped blouse carefully tucked into her skirt in a way that hides the damage. Emma pulls her robe a little tighter around her body in a sudden bout of insecurity, acutely aware of the crusted mascara on her lashes and the greasy residue of yesterday's foundation that feels awful against her skin now.

"To hell with legal custody," David starts to argue, but Emma cuts him off.

"Regina's right," Emma snaps. "And what the hell do I know about being a parent, anyway?"

"Emma!" David looks even more disappointed in her now. "You can't just give in to her. Our family fights for each other."

"Henry isn't my family," Emma sighs, feeling the past few months of uneasy responsibility finally start to shift. "I gave him up. And just because he needed my help for a little while, doesn't mean I want to take him back."

"Well, it's about time." Regina says, smugness dripping from the words. It's almost enough to make Emma reconsider, but there's no fight in her this morning.

"I'm going to talk to your mother about this," David says, opening the door at last.

"I'll come with you," Regina says. "Take Henry home for breakfast."

"I'll bring him to you," David argues, and then he's gone, door slamming behind him.

Regina chuckles quietly to herself, and Emma turns away in disgust, the taste of beer in her mouth now stale and disgusting, but it's nothing compared to the revulsion she feels at herself for falling into bed with Regina again.

"Well, don't let me hold you up," Emma says after an awkward silence descends. Regina makes her way down into the kitchen, strolling around like she owns the place, despite apparently never having been in the apartment before last night. Oh, except for planting evidence, Emma amends, unless she had Sidney do that for her too. "If Henry gives you any crap, just let me know, I guess."

"I can deal with his 'crap'," Regina reminds her, pouring a glass of juice from the bottle in the fridge, finishing it off without offering Emma any.

"You mess with him again," Emma warns. "And I'll take him back so fast your head will spin."

"If I upset Henry, I think we both know he'll come looking for you," Regina says wistfully. "Unless you lie to him again."

"And I suppose we're not talking about-"

"What do you think?" Regina snaps. "I've had quite enough embarrassment for one morning, thank you."

"Hey," Emma says, trying to make light of the situation. "And you were pretty cool about Charming discovering you in the nude, at least."

"Well, we've had a few near misses," Regina says, a cruel gleam in her eye as Emma's stomach roils.

"Please tell me you haven't..."

"A lady never tells," Regina mocks, placing her empty glass in the sink.

"And if I've learned anything in the past couple of weeks it's that you may be a Queen, but you sure as hell ain't a lady," Emma accuses. "You could try giving me a straight answer for once."

"Where's the fun in that?" Regina asks, pulling on her blazer and striding towards the door. "You should take some aspirin; you look like hell."

Emma replays the conversation carefully, willing her brain not to go where it absolutely must not. It's weird enough even having parents, and acknowledging that they still have sex with each other. But Prince Charming hooking up with the Evil Queen is gross for about twenty different reasons before Emma includes her own family tree, even if a very dark, hopefully easy-to-ignore part of her mind is already thinking about how it could have happened.

"Hey!" Emma calls out after her, hoping to distract herself and fast. "Is there a magic way to just... delete a hangover? I mean, I have magic, right?"

"All magic comes with a price," Regina says, and it doesn't sound like she's teasing. "So if you want a teacher, you'll have to look elsewhere."

"Fine," Emma grunts, already raiding the drawers for aspirin. "Should have known better than to expect you to do something for anyone other than yourself."

Regina hesitates, the barbs obviously ready on her tongue, but she thinks better of it and strides out into the hallway, slamming the door just as Charming did before her.

Emma really, really hopes that slamming doors is all the two have in common.

* * *

Between the shower to scrub herself clean and the flurry of hot water, disinfectant and cloths to scrub the apartment clean-even the dark corners that Emma wouldn't usually bother with-she feels much better by the time dinner rolls around.

Henry texts around six, asking if she's eaten, and Emma tries to smile at the concern. Unfortunately it feels more like Mary Margaret's tendency to nagging has skipped a generation, leaving Emma to get it in the neck from every direction.

_Just heading out for Granny's mac and cheese._ Emma replies. _Sorry about last night._

He doesn't reply, the silent judgment statement enough. Pulling on her cleanest jeans and a loose sweater, Emma starts out on the short walk to the diner, wondering how the hell she started understanding what it feels like to be Regina.

* * *

There's just no avoiding people in a town this small. Emma has more tricks up her sleeve than most, but even she can't throw her parents off her trail for long. It buys her two unplanned days of sobriety, avoiding the bars and liquor stores that will probably be their first points of call. She even tells herself she feels better for it, despite the shaking hands and the hours of puking at the end of the first day. If she didn't feel much like seeing them before, she's close to hating their breathing guts by the time David and Mary Margaret come knocking on her door, bringing Tupperware filled with food and an obnoxious cloud of judgment.

"_What_?" Emma snaps after they bustle around her kitchen for five whole minutes, ignoring where she's flopped out on the sofa, not quite watching a Top Model rerun.

"Your father and I-" Mary Margaret begins, and Emma feels her blood begin to boil. She can't do this, she absolutely can't. They're so intent on parenting her that she feels like a bitch for pointing out it's at least a decade too late. Maybe she is wrong, but then she's not the one shoving family members into unsuspecting furniture, so if there is a moral high ground here perhaps Emma is the one who has it.

"I haven't had a drink in a few days," Emma sighs, rounding up to make it sound just a little better. "Not that I drink every day, anyway, but you want to act like I do."

"Emma, that's great," her father says, and Mary Margaret stops mid-stacking of the fridge to turn around and smile in encouragement; it leaves Emma cold.

"I have a job," she reminds them. "I have no intention of being a full-time single mom. And what I choose to do in the privacy of my own home is none of your business."

"That, we need to talk about," Mary Margaret corrects, moving across the living room to sit on the couch beside Emma, who grudgingly moves her legs to make room. "I know that you don't understand our land, Emma, but there are certain things we just can't take back from this world."

"I'm beginning to mix up the Enchanted Forest with Alabama," Emma says. "Besides, I'm a private person. Nobody is gonna care what I do. In a few months they'll forget the Savior crap anyway."

"It's not just about being the Savior," David replies. "As a member of the Royal Family, you have a duty towards the lineage, the succession."

"I really don't," Emma explains. "My obligation to care about anything like that ended when I landed on the side of a freeway."

"And speaking of family obligations," Mary Margaret continues, as though Emma hadn't even spoken. "Regina? Leaving aside the attempted murder and ruining all our lives with a curse, the woman is practically my mother. Do you know what that makes her to you?"

"Nothing," Emma answers, quite honestly. "The only way she could be any kind of family to me is if you'd raised me, with her still around. And since we all know you haven't been related since your father died-"

"Since she killed him, Emma," Mary Margaret pleads. "That's who she is."

"Doesn't change the fact that I was never a part of that family," Emma snaps. "So thanks for the food, but I have an early shift tomorrow."

"Don't do this," her father warns. "Regina is a poisonous presence in anyone's life, Emma. If she's convinced you somehow-maybe through magic-to act this way..."

"I have magic of my own," Emma reminds him. "But tell me, is that how she got you?"

"What do you mean?" David demands, but he's already blushing which all but confirms Emma's fears.

"I don't think I'm the first Charming family member to find something attractive about Regina," Emma accuses, not daring to meet her mother's eye as she watches her father squirm.

"Charming?" Mary Margaret asks, her voice trembling. "What is Emma talking about?"

"Nothing ever happened," David says, his voice steady even though Emma can see the lie written across his face as plain as day. "You know our love is true, Snow."

"Then why would you say that, Emma?" Mary Margaret grabs Emma's sleeve, not letting her squirm away from the confrontation. Looking at her mother, Emma sees something she hasn't seen on that sweet face before: pure anger. "I understand you're having a tough time, but causing trouble between your father and me isn't the answer."

Emma feels her stomach sink, an old and familiar nausea rising that she thought she'd never have to deal with again. She's back in the memories of her foster homes, learning over and over that accusations get her nowhere, that telling the truth doesn't matter, that nobody will ever, ever take her side.

"Perhaps it's time to grow up," David suggests, offering a hand to Snow, who stands beside him and accepts the possessive weight of his arm around her shoulders. They are a unit, united against everyone, including their own child.

"I did my growing up!" Emma yells, her tolerance reaching its breaking point in that instant. "When you have to learn 'we don't want you' at three years old, you grow up pretty damn fast."

"How long are you going to blame us for that?" Mary Margaret demands. "We have apologized. You know we had no choice."

"It seems like you had a lot of choice," Emma argues. "What about magic beans and all the other ways people have come to this world? You acted for weeks like it was almost impossible, but it turns out I've been stalked by fairytale characters for most of my life. It couldn't have been that hard."

"You're clearly very angry," Mary Margaret says, and while she's aiming for soothing, it comes off as straight up patronizing. "I think you should make some time to talk with Archie."

"Therapy with a bug, I'll get right on that," Emma mocks, turning the volume on the television all the way back up. "You can see yourselves out."

"You sound just like her," Mary Margaret says, barely holding back tears.

"Yeah, well," Emma replies, waving them towards the door. "And he's lying, for what it's worth."

"Emma!" David shouts.

"Enough," Snow says, her face hardening as she turns to look at Emma again. "We'll see you another time, Emma. Perhaps when you've stopped making up these lies."

They close the door quietly enough when they leave, and Emma tries to stop the reaction, considers counting to ten or punching a cushion, but she's far too angry for that.

The remote sails through the air in a perfect, forceful arc, and the television screen implodes with a muted crack and flash of blue light that is somehow enough to calm her down.

Emma grabs her keys and wallet from the coffee table, and she's halfway to the liquor store before her breathing starts to calm.

* * *

She's half a blink from finally falling asleep when she hears the footsteps behind her. Some tiny part of her brain that can still function makes her scramble to her feet, but it's too late.

Strong arms wrap around her waist, pulling her the rest of the way up even as Emma flails out with arms and legs alike, trying desperately to land a blow and meeting nothing but air or the occasional brushing of fabric.

"Put. Me. Down," she yells, hoping to draw some attention from the street. Sure, it's embarrassing as the Sheriff to be getting her ass kicked by some stranger in a parking lot, but Emma has bigger problems than her pride right now.

"Why?" A gruff voice asks. "It's not like you can stand right now, judging by the whiff of Scotch coming off you."

The lilt is familiar and maddening, and Emma starts kicking all the harder, her heel connecting with a shin this time.

"Hook! I warned you," she grunts, wriggling in his infuriatingly strong grip. "You're only even allowed in this town because-"

"Because I helped you overthrow Cora. A fact you might remember when kicking me in the sensitive parts, princess."

"What happened to your quiet life down by the docks?" Emma gasps, and then he finally lets her go, letting her fall back onto the hood of her own car.

"A man has needs," Hook responds, the same suggestion underlying his words. "But I see you've already drunk the town dry."

"Go to hell," Emma grouses, reaching around the car, stumbling as she aims for the driver's door.

"I don't think so," Hook says, coming up behind her and lifting her bodily off the ground again. "I never did get the hang of these cars of yours, but even I know someone unfit to steer a ship."

"You're an idiot," Emma says, and the sleepy feeling washes over her like a tidal wave, and she feels weightless as Hook carries her in his arms.

"So you keep telling me," Hook replies, quite unaffected by her continued insults. He smells like spicy cologne and leather, it's as close as Emma has to comfort. "Now, where to? I'm not the biggest fan of your parents, truth be told, but if you want-"

"No!" Emma manages to instruct. "Not there."

"You shouldn't be left alone," he continues. "That booze is coming back up, sometime soon. And my modest ship has just the one big bed-"

"Hell no," Emma mumbles.

"Well, you're not much of a dead weight, but I can't carry you indefinitely," Hook complains, bouncing her in his arms to mime the feeling of being dropped. That forces Emma to give some kind of instruction, if only so he'll let her pass out in peace.

"R'gina," she mutters, and lets the world fade quickly to black.

* * *

"Absolutely not."

"Come on, your Majesty."

"What do you think this is? Some kind of halfway house?"

"Just give me a surface to put her on."

* * *

"Emma?"

Not again. Why can't anyone just let her sleep when she goddamned wants to?

"Go away," she mumbles, and the effort of those two words send her stumbling from the bed in search of somewhere to throw up. The bed is actually a lot more comfortable than usual, and when she rolls off the side it feels like a much bigger drop, too.

"Oh for the love of-" Emma hears, before slender but strong arms slip under her armpits and pull her up to kneeling, which is about as far as her head wants her to go.

"I don't feel very well," she mumbles, hot tears spilling down her cheeks, because really this whole situation can't get much more mortifying anyway.

"Oh, you poor baby," Regina's voice is a lot clearer now, sharper for being right by Emma's ear. For a split second she almost believes it, almost leans into the comfort as a last act of desperation, but Regina doesn't allow time for Emma to embarrass herself any further. "You probably have alcohol poisoning, you pathetic child."

"Leave me alone," Emma pleads. "I don't know why I'm here."

"Your boyfriend brought you," Regina huffs, practically dragging Emma over the fluffy carpet towards the bathroom.

"I don't have a boyfriend," Emma mutters, confused. "If I did, you'd have tried to fuck him by now."

"You can't possibly still be bitter about Graham," Regina muses, turning on the faucet in the bath to full. "Hot or cold?"

"Are you crazy?" Emma asks, from where she's slumped by the sink. "Hot. I don't want to die."

"It might finish the job of sobering you up," Regina explains, considering for a moment before dumping something flowery and expensive-smelling in the water. Emma wrinkles her nose in distaste. It's bad enough being here, without leaving smelling like some fancy hooker the way Regina does.

"Don't worry," Emma says, pulling at her clothes. No need for modesty when Regina's seen her naked, after all. "If I get too sober you can always share your stash again."

She's too distracted by pulling her shirt over her head to see Regina coming, but Emma sure as hell feels it when those bony fingers wrap around her throat, slamming her head back against the ceramic bowl of the sink.

"You shut your mouth," Regina spits. "Of all the things I can't stand about you, the fact that you have your mother's gift for running your mouth off whenever you please is by far the worst."

"I'm nothing like her," Emma gasps. "And she doesn't like it when the stories are about her, either."

"What do you mean?" Regina pounces, curiosity evident in her dark eyes. "Which stories?"

"I told her about you and David," Emma says, smiling weakly in victory. "So I guess you have one less ace up your sleeve."

Regina releases her grip then, and Emma coughs at the sudden intake of air.

"Here," Regina says, passing Emma a toothbrush, still in its packaging, from next to the sink. "You should clean up that idiotic mouth of yours."

"What?" Emma demands, as she hauls herself up to standing and reaches gratefully for the toothpaste.

"Just like your selfish bitch of a mother, you ran around telling tales without having all the facts," Regina explains, and she's behind Emma now as she rinses her mouth, pressing her against the sink. Their eyes meet in the mirror, and Emma has the sense to feel at least a little scared. "I can only hope," Regina continues. "That you've caused as much damage for her as she did for me."

"Uh... the bath?" Emma is floundering, not sure which fact to deal with first. It doesn't help that her stupid body is lighting up all over from the contact with Regina's, however unfriendly it might have been.

Regina rolls her eyes, but goes to turn the faucet off anyway. She fetches towels from a closet in the corner of the room, and nods for Emma to get on with it.

"I'm not in the habit of providing free shows," Emma challenges, feeling just a little bit more like herself as the hangover starts to recede. "So if you're staying, you're stripping too. House rules."

"It's my house," Regina points out, clearly past the end of her patience by now.

"Come on," Emma insists, because everyone else has turned away from her and it will piss Regina off beyond all measure to be the one who turns back. "I've always wanted to see what all the fuss was about."

"What fuss?" Regina snaps, hands on her hips as she stands there, every bit the impatient single mom in her black jeans and simple red sweater.

"About dunking witches," Emma says, quite solemnly. "You know, if you can stop assaulting me and comparing me to my parents long enough."

"I should have told Hook to take you somewhere else," Regina replies, but her fingers flicker just an inch or so towards the hem of her sweater. She's considering it.

"What about Henry?" Emma asks.

"He's too old to take a bath with either one of us," Regina mocks. "But since you finally remembered he exists, he called your father to pick him up once I mentioned you were here."

Emma doesn't fight the sinking feeling in her chest, nor does she ignore the wicked glee on Regina's face at Emma being the one so easily rejected this time. She strips her clothes off roughly, not caring about whether Regina's enjoying the view, and steps into the warm water with even less than her usual lack of grace. At least she avoids falling and cracking her head on the smooth surfaces.

"Fine," Regina huffs, yanking her sweater over her head to show off lingerie too fancy for lounging around the house on a weekend. "But only because you're like one of those children raised by wild animals, and probably don't know how to bathe yourself correctly."

"Go to hell," Emma fires back, but she watches intently as Regina sheds the rest of her clothing and steps forward.

"This doesn't mean you're welcome here," Regina reminds her, before slipping into the water and letting wet skin slide against wet skin, her back to Emma.

"And I don't ever want to be," Emma replies.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N : As ever, I really value all of your feedback and thoughts about the story. A good review makes the paragraphs really flow ;) The final few chapters have taken shape, and when the edits are done I'll post as quickly as possible.**

* * *

"This is-" Emma opens her mouth to say, after an awkward few minutes.

"If you say 'nice', I'll throw you out," Regina interrupts, leaning back and bumping her head against Emma's collarbone.

"Fine," Emma says. "I won't say it, then."

"I can hear your mind working from here," Regina sighs, cupping her hand in the water and then letting it trickle over her breasts. Emma can't help but be distracted at the sight. "Perhaps if you used your brain more often, it wouldn't be so obvious."

"Are the insults supposed to be a turn on?" Emma asks, shifting slightly and catching Regina's side with her knee, not completely by accident.

"You tell me," Regina fires back. "It certainly seems to be working so far. Since your issues have issues, that's hardly surprising."

"Are you seriously going to debate mental health with me right now?" Emma demands, not quite believing even Regina is that oblivious.

"Well, only if you're sober," Regina replies, and that shuts down any rant that might be forming on Emma's lips. Well, that and Regina's hands moving to stroke Emma's legs, alternating right and left with varying pressure from her fingertips that makes the bathwater ripple in pleasant ways.

"I don't know how this keeps happening," Emma admits. Absent-mindedly, she begins to gently squeeze Regina's shoulders, and she doesn't reject the massage. "Every day I think 'I'm fine' and then I end up wasted or, well, with you."

"I wish I could say that's the least romantic thing anyone's ever said to me," Regina complains. "But like I said before, don't go thinking this means I want you here."

"Right," Emma snarks. "Because you've ever been made to do anything you don't want to."

She flinches at Regina's sudden turn, but instead of the anger Emma expects for her thoughtless comment, she only sees a kind of slack-jawed hurt on Regina's face.

"Oh," Emma amends. "I wasn't even trying to be a bitch that time. It just slipped out."

"You acted without thinking it through first?" Regina asks, turning away again. She hasn't taken her hands off Emma the whole time. "Well, how unlike you."

"Our problem," Emma decides, her hands back on Regina's shoulders, but with a firmer grip now. "Is when we talk. So let's not do that."

"No, my problem is you keep showing up here like a lost puppy," Regina corrects, leaning back against Emma, with a murmur of approval as Emma's hard nipples press against Regina's back. "Why in the world would you think I even care about your drama?"

"I don't know," Emma admits. She takes a deep breath, and then a risk. "But you must, because you never actually throw me out. Even when you have good reason to."

"Damn," Regina says. "You were right."

"I was?" Emma is suspicious, because Regina admitting that can only mean trouble.

"It is," Regina begins, turning and kneeling between Emma's thighs, the water sloshing gently around them. "Definitely," she continues, pressing a forceful kiss beneath Emma's ear. "Better," Regina murmurs, her mouth trailing lower before her tongue swirls over the hollow of Emma's collarbone. "When we don't talk."

"I don't know," Emma argues, for the sake of it, and because it makes Regina graze her teeth over Emma's wet skin in warning. "I bet I can make you pretty vocal."

"Pretty arrogant for someone who had to be carried here a few hours ago," Regina mocks, but it dissolves in a gasp as Emma captures a nipple between thumb and index finger.

"You were saying?" Emma teases, pinching lightly until Regina groans in reaction. "You know, I'm not so sure about the whole bath thing. I think you'll be wet enough without it, don't you?"

"Don't be crude," Regina says through gritted teeth. "And no more calling the shots from you."

"You didn't seem to mind when I was-" Emma retorts, but Regina cuts her off with a kiss that owes a lot more to threats than anything like affection. Her tongue is forceful, demanding entry, and Emma has very little to offer by way of resistance. Her body is lighting up all over at the prospect of being so satisfied again, the mindless explosion of it the only thing better than passing out drunk when it comes to forgetting all her troubles for a while; even if one of her biggest troubles is going to be causing the explosion.

Regina seems to sense Emma's inner debate, and pushes her forcefully against the back of the tub, making her lean in a way that's basically offering her body up for whatever the hell Regina plans on doing to it. Emma really tries to make herself annoyed about that, but her ankles cross behind Regina's back and it's pretty obvious neither of them are going anywhere.

"Concentrate," Regina warns, and it's so pleasantly mean in a sexy librarian sort of way that Emma does what she's told. Of course, concentrating is a hell of a lot easier when the subject is how Regina's hand is cupping Emma between her thighs, middle finger gliding over her clit with the kind of patience that suggests Regina will take all day if she wants.

"I'm concentrating," Emma teases, leaning forward and uncrossing her legs, all the better to mirror Regina's actions. "Are you?" She asks, with a particularly firm flick of her finger over Regina's clit. The resulting moan is throaty, and quickly suppressed.

The contest is declared then, without a word. Free hands clutch at damp breasts, while rolls of the wrist and flicks of the fingers are traded in a silent display, punctuated only by a narrowing of the eyes and increasingly desperate hitches in breathing.

"Dammit," Emma mutters as her hips betray her and rock harder against Regina's hand. Emma's only option now is escalation, and she slides her middle finger inside Regina with ease, curling it to make sure the flat pressure of her fingertip drags over the spot that makes Regina's head drop back when she gasps.

"No," Regina mutters, but she's pushing two fingers inside Emma because it's still more about winning than anything to do with pleasure. The pace is punishing, and Emma's too tired to mount much resistance, giving in to the firmness of Regina's thumb on her clit and the thrust of the fingers inside her.

Emma comes with a cry she can't hold back, and Regina's smug expression makes Emma want to slap her, even through the little lights firing behind her eyes. Emma's hand has stilled as Regina savors her victory, but Emma is clumsy in starting up again, making Regina hiss through her teeth at the unexpected move.

Unlike Emma, Regina is able to hold out. She clutches at Emma's shoulders, nails digging into wet skin, drawing blood as she rides Emma's fingers to a grudging but powerful climax, taking just long enough to make Emma's wrist start to ache.

"You shouldn't be here," Regina grumbles when she catches her breath. No post-coital cuddling for her, Emma realizes again, as Regina leverages herself on Emma's shoulders and clambers out of the bath, snatching up a huge white towel to wrap herself in.

"What, I don't even get breakfast?" Emma jokes, slipping back under the water and reaching for the fancy soap.

"It's the middle of the afternoon," Regina points out.

"I'm hungry," Emma says, running the soap over muscles that are now happily relaxed. "And you can cook, so..."

"Presumption runs in the family, I see," Regina replies, stretching her neck muscles and cracking her knuckles like she's considering disappearing Emma in a convenient puff of magic smoke. "Be downstairs in fifteen minutes. Or starve, for all I care."

"Gee, thanks," Emma snorts, watching the elegant lines of Regina's legs as she exits the bathroom. "Leave me something to wear?" Emma calls out after her. The slamming of the door is her only response.

* * *

The water is already starting to cool, and so Emma doesn't linger beyond getting properly cleaned up. She helps herself to supplies from the bathroom cabinet, impressed but not entirely surprised that Regina's guest bathroom is more equipped than most hotel suites. It's only when Emma steps out into the bedroom-very obviously Regina's bedroom-that she realizes that was no guest bathroom. (The sheer size of it should probably have tipped her off, but Emma's head is currently pounding like a death metal bassline, even with a medicinal orgasm, so she's not exactly thriving on details.)

There's no sign of anything being left out for her, so Emma helps herself to the black silk robe hanging on the back of the door, before heading back to the bathroom and washing down a couple of Regina's Vicodin stash with a full glass of water. Checking her reflection in the mirror, Emma pulls a face at the dark circles beneath her eyes, and the way her hair hangs limply around her face. A few pins deal with that mess, but there's no hiding her bloodshot eyes or the bruise on her eyebrow she doesn't remember getting.

It's going to have to do, Emma decides, and she makes her way downstairs. She feels like an intruder, creeping down the carpeted stairs and trying not to make a sound. At least the kitchen is easy to find, and she clears her throat loudly as she enters; catching a witch by surprise isn't exactly good self-preservation.

"You're having waffles," Regina says, pouring some batter onto a spotless waffle iron. "Cut up your own fruit."

"What, no whipped cream?" Emma mocks, prompting Regina to sigh and nod to where a glass bottle of syrup and can of whipped cream are already waiting on the counter. "Oh, Regina, you really do come prepared."

"If you think my feeding you is an excuse to make childish jokes, you're welcome to walk yourself down to Granny's and eat there," Regina warns, but she seems perfectly at home in her kitchen. Emma pulls up a stool on the far side of the island counter and watches Regina work, the same easy grace in her movements as she has in bed.

Emma's sinking her fork into the first waffle when there's a loud, impatient knocking at the front door. Regina simply rolls her eyes at the intrusion, but it bleeds all the old tension back into both of them. The relaxed atmosphere of Emma watching Regina cook for them both all but evaporates as Regina wipes her hands on a towel and goes to answer the door.

Emma waits on a kitchen stool, wrapped in Regina's robe, knowing that trouble can't be far away. Sure enough, Ruby comes scampering into the kitchen in front of Regina, her determined expression completely at odds with her beat-up biker jacket and vibrant makeup.

"Hey, Emma," she says, pulling Emma into a hug that she neither invites nor enjoys very much. Ruby looks down at the waffle, covered in roughly chopped strawberries and too much cream, her expression instantly wounded. "You didn't want to come to the diner for waffles?"

"David and Mary Margaret hang out there a lot," Emma mumbles. "And Henry will be getting out of school any minute now."

"All the more reason," Ruby says, laying a hand on Emma's forearm. "Your parents will totally forgive whatever silly argument you're having. They're good people."

Regina's snort is not quite quiet enough.

"And Henry just wants to know you're okay. He's lucky, he has two moms who care about him, so just remind him that you do... care about him," Ruby continues. "That's all I ever wanted from my mom."

"Before Snow White got her killed?" Regina asks, voice syrupy sweet as she turns around to interrupt. "Don't worry dear, she has quite the habit of doing that."

"You don't talk about my mother," Ruby demands, squaring up to Regina over the counter.

"I have no need to," Regina replies. "Your wolf people told me the whole story long ago. They tried to bargain with me to get vengeance for Anita-they tracked Snow for me many times."

"I do care about Henry," Emma interrupts, trying to defuse the tension. "But I'm not ready for that kind of responsibility."

It's Regina who cuts her off this time, moving away from the bowl of waffle batter on the counter.

"Yes, you are," Regina says. "Or at least you'll have to be. I may not like it, but Henry has chosen to have you in his life. I won't let you disappoint him."

"He's a great kid," Emma admits, closing her eyes against the surge of feeling that she's been trying to drown for weeks now. Who knew the baby she spent years trying to forget all about would be the exception to her promise not to feel anything for anyone? "I just don't know what the hell I'm doing."

"Archie had a suggestion," Ruby says softly. "And I know you're resistant to get help, but I really think if you at least talked to people about the drinking, people who understand, maybe you wouldn't get angry at them like you get angry at us."

"What, there's a Fairytale chapter of AA?" Emma snorts, but her friend's sudden enthusiastic smile says she's hit the nail on the head. "Are you kidding me?"

"Well, a few people have been having adjustment issues," Ruby explains, shooting another glare at Regina's back. "It turns out living a lie for twenty-eight years isn't that easy for everyone to process."

"And some of you should be grateful about what it allowed you to forget," Regina mutters, but Ruby doesn't rise to the bait.

"I'm not big on the touchy-feely crap," Emma explains, and she could swear she hears Regina snicker quietly from across the room. "You know that about me, Ruby. I'd rather drink poison than talk about, you know, me."

"That can be arranged," Regina throws out helpfully, and Emma's a little bit comforted that she's not the only one glaring at Regina for it.

"Will you try, Emma? Please?" Ruby reaches for her hand across the table, and Emma doesn't think to pull away. They sit there in awkward silence for a long moment before Emma exhales heavily and gives in. If it keeps the peace, is it really so bad? She's done a lot worse to keep foster parents happy, to stop them sending her back. Surely she can try just a little for parents and friends who actually seem to care about her?

"I'm sorry about how I've treated you all," Emma mumbles. "And if you really think it'll help, I'll do what Archie says."

"Oh, Emma!" Ruby can't contain herself any longer, and the hug is a powerful one that almost knocks Emma off her chair. She grimaces her way through it, patting her friend on the back until she's released. "Henry will be so pleased."

Well, Emma thinks, she's almost getting used to the guilt trip every time the kid's name is mentioned.

"I'll come see him later?" Emma asks. "Then I can take him home, if he wants."

"Perfect," Ruby says, both of them pointedly ignoring whatever Regina has started to chop with barely-contained fury. The knife slams against the chopping board, and Emma smiles at her friend in what she hopes is a reassuring way. "And your mom and dad will be so happy to see you, too. They just want good things for you," Ruby adds, nodding towards Regina with pursed lips.

"Ruby..." Emma warns. "One step at a time, okay? I'll come see you later, with Henry."

"Great!" Ruby says, eager to be out of Regina's house.

When they're alone again, Regina seems in no hurry to turn away from the fruit she's chopped for herself.

"Uh, I didn't know anyone would-" Emma starts to explain as the silence stretches on past uncomfortable.

"Of course you did," Regina snaps. "You might only just be reunited, but surely you know by now that half the kingdom is bizarrely invested in making sure your parents are the only ones with a happy ending. If that includes bringing their daughter back to them, well..."

"All that bitterness is going to make your waffles taste funny," Emma snarks, taking another bite of her own. Regina sits down two seats over, and they eat in relative silence.

* * *

Emma knocks on the front door, because this house has never been (and will never be) home to her. Henry comes running to answer it, a good sign since he knows to be expecting her.

"Hey, mom," he says, and this time it doesn't make Emma feel like she wants to scream.

"Hey, kid," she tries, forcing a smile.

"Why did you come to Mom's house last night?" He demands, leading her through to the kitchen. "She was pretty pissed when Hook woke everyone up."

"Um," Emma hedges, not quite prepared for the third degree. She meant to get here two hours sooner, but Regina had other ideas once the robes had come off. Emma's back is still stinging from the clawmarks that must look pretty angry against her skin. "It just seemed like the safest place to go."

"Emma," David says, from where he's rooting around in the fridge. "Did you eat?"

"I... did," Emma admits. "Listen, I wanted to say sorry about yesterday."

"It's fine," Mary Margaret chimes in, appearing behind Henry in the doorway. "We all understand you've been under a lot of pressure."

"Ruby came to see me," Emma continues, eager to get this awkward conversation out of the way. "She suggested a group that Archie runs."

"We know," David says, closing the fridge and coming away from it empty-handed. Emma already noticed the bottle of beer he put back in its place before moving.

"So, I'll go," Emma says. "If you think that's best."

"Thank you," Henry says from the doorway. "Are we staying here for dinner?"

"No, I uh, wanted to try cooking tonight," Emma explains, looking at each of her parents for approval. They exchange a glance with each other then, in their unspoken language that makes it so easy for them to gang up on their only daughter.

"That's fine with us," Mary Margaret agrees. "And for the rest of the week, just let us know if you need Henry to spend any time here. To give you a break."

"I'll let you know once I speak to Regina," Emma replies, daring them to disagree with her. "Henry's going to be spending time with her from now on."

"Supervised?" David asks, before shaking his head. "Never mind, forget I said anything."

"Get your stuff, kid," Emma instructs, before the conversation can flare up into another fight. "I'll be outside, you know it takes a few tries for the Bug to start."

"Cool!" Henry yelps, rushing off to whichever room in this house he's commandeered as his own.

"Thanks for looking after him," Emma says, shoving her hands in the pockets of her jeans, which are going straight in the laundry pile the minute she gets home. Only a wave of Regina's magic had gotten rid of the caked-on mud from wherever the hell Hook found her. "Things are going to be better, okay?"

"Of course," her parents reply, voices overlapping as they rush to reassure her.

Emma heads out with an awkward half-wave, and she can feel their eyes on her until she's safely out of the front door.

* * *

In many ways, Storybrooke's Rec Center looks just like the ones in every other town Emma has ever breezed through. Since seeing Archie on Monday afternoon, she's stretched it out as long as possible, but figures the Friday evening meeting is as long as she can wait before some form of nagging starts.

She sits in the Bug until the last possible second, not quite listening to the pop song on the radio that she recognizes, but can't remember the words to. It reminds her of driving through the night to a new city, of open roads and the sulfur glow of freeway lights. She watches the other group members arrive one by one, heads bowed and hats pulled low, the collective shame of being gripped by addiction evident in the set of their shoulders and the shuffling of their feet. Emma knows there's nothing actually wrong with her, that this happens to all kinds of people, but she can't help feeling that if people would leave her alone for a while she'd be able to cope just fine, like she has done for all of the past year.

When she can't put it off any longer, already sighing at the thought of being anonymously ratted out to her parents, Emma steps out of the car and jogs towards the yellow glow of admitting defeat. There's coffee and stale cookies as she expected, a brown swill worse than anything she's ever drunk at Granny's, and if nothing else has her tastebuds calling out for a cold beer, that coffee does the trick.

She scans the assembled people, six in total, hats now removed and coats all thrown on a shaky table in the back. Emma pulls her blue leather jacket tighter around her, not willing to give up the little protection that it offers. Archie smiles at her from where he's shuffling through some index cards, and Emma nods in acknowledgment. She doesn't make eye contact with Leroy or Sidney, but the sight of Granny knitting on one of the folding chairs has Emma's suspicions raised. She's never seen the woman have so much as a glass of wine with dinner, and the fact that she's part of Mary Margaret and David's inner circle is reason enough to give Emma pause.

Still, she showed up. Nobody was smart enough to make her promise anything more than that.

Archie coughs a few times before the room finally comes to attention, and Emma takes her seat as far from everyone else as possible.

"Welcome, everyone," Archie says, and Emma finds herself almost responding to his warm, if nervous, smile. It isn't his fault that her parents have forced her here, backed up by Henry's pleading and the goddamned puppy dog eyes he clearly inherited from Neal. "I'd like to start with our prayer. If you don't pray, perhaps take this silent time to think about those who are still sick and suffering, who have yet to take this step to recovery that you have all been brave enough to take."

Emma tunes out at the mention of prayer, her experiences with religion too bruising to make her stick around. Eventually the mumbling along stops and an expectant silence falls over the group.

"I'm not going first this time," Leroy says, before anyone else can get a word in. "Every time you make me share first, and I've had enough."

"Fine," Archie sighs, and this is clearly not the first time they've had this argument. "Does anyone else want to share? We have a new member tonight, and it might be helpful to show her the ropes."

Emma stares straight ahead as everyone turns to look at her, and it's junior high all over again with the turning the new girl into a freak vibe that's in the air right now.

Sean is the first to stand, looking a bit less like a Prince in his stained coveralls. The stubble on his face is at least a couple of day's worth, and Emma feels a pang of guilt about how little she's looked in on Ashley and him since the baby was born.

"Hello," he says, in his soft voice, sounding only half as timid as the last time Emma had seen him. "My name is Sean...Thomas. And I'm an alcoholic."

"Hi, Sean," the others chorus, but Emma doesn't join in.

He starts to talk about his new life here in Storybrooke, and Emma hangs in there until he starts complaining about how he misses his castle and they all got screwed by Rumplestiltskin and Regina, and maybe he wouldn't need to drink if they just got some real vengeance out of their systems.

Speaking of Regina, Emma tries not to let her train of thought pull in that direction, but her mind is intent on replaying the last time they were together, and it's bad enough that the sex is burned into her mind in explicit detail, but she actually has a craving for the waffles, too.

Sean is still rambling on when Emma hears the squeak of a hinge behind her. She turns, but there's no evidence of anyone in the doorway. Suspicious, she mouths 'bathroom' at Archie, and slinks towards the back of the room without anyone else noticing.

She's walking the corridor, looking for a spy who probably isn't there, when a hand grabs her arm from one of the darkened doorways that lead off the hallway.

"Jesus!" Emma hisses.

"Not exactly," Regina murmurs in response, her voice low enough to send a shiver down Emma's spine. "I heard you were coming to this sad little event, and I just had to come see it for myself."

"Screw you," Emma mutters back, finally willing to go back in the room if it means escaping Regina's scorn. "I'm just trying to keep the peace. I don't have a damn problem, and you know it."

"I know more than most," Regina reminds her. "Since you now think I'm your keeper when you get too drunk to walk. What, I did such a good job of raising your offspring that you want me to babysit you, too?"

"One week of Henry back in your life and you're already trying to mess with me?" Emma asks. "It's like you want me to take him away again."

"Don't you dare!" Regina warns. "And don't be so sure that he'd go with you, in the state you're in these days."

"Emma?" Archie calls from the doorway she left through. Luckily, he can't see Regina from that angle. "Is everything okay?"

"Just a call from work," Emma lies, but Regina's still got a grip on her elbow. "So, uh, where are the washrooms?"

"Just down the hall," Archie supplies, helpful as ever. "Try not to be gone too long, okay?"

"Sure thing, doc," Emma answers, pulling away from Regina and heading for the ladies room. The minute Archie ducks out of sight, the click of familiar heels starts following her. Emma wants to pretend like she can resist this, too; that she could turn around and leave this building without giving in to a single temptation.

But in the absence of liquid courage, Emma knows she doesn't stand a chance. Regina is advancing on her like any good predator, and Emma has no place to go.

"I wouldn't usually stoop to this kind of location," Regina says, shoving Emma past the door. "But needs must, don't you agree?"

Emma doesn't answer. She already knows she's screwed.


	7. Chapter 7

_When she is cruel, she is very, very  
cool and when she is kind she is lavish_.

**Judy Grahn - Detroit Annie, Hitchhiking**

* * *

On her knees, Emma is almost bearable.

Democracy has its perks, but being Mayor never compared to the instinctive dominance of being a Queen. Though she never sought the power directly, never wanted the crushing weight on it on her shoulders day and night, Regina had found a certain dark enjoyment in it, of seeing those who would once have hurt her bow and scrape in her presence. Regina has always been able to make them tremble with a flick of her fingers; it's only now she's discovering there's more than one way to perform that very trick as something other than a punishment.

Showing up here is irresponsible, Regina knows. The last thing she wants is to become further entangled in Emma's life, since they're already too far past being enemies for comfort. It's just that the slow burn of need she used to slake with Graham's weekly visits has returned with a roar, awakened by the way that Emma has been so competent in both worshipping and degrading her.

"We should not be doing this," Emma mumbles as she pushes Regina's skirt up over her hips. "Having a double shot of tequila right now would still be more appropriate than this."

"Shut up," Regina orders, which is becoming a habit in its own right. Everything Emma says infuriates Regina, makes her want to conjure up the fireballs that she promised Henry she wouldn't. She's managing to keep the impulse almost entirely under control, but when the purple mist starts to leak from her fingertips, only two things distract her: the easily replenished stock of Vicodin, and the mouth of Emma Swan, in all its sulky, talented glory.

Emma responds to the very clear command by sinking her teeth into the tender flesh of Regina's inner thigh instead. On instinct, Regina grabs a fistful of disgustingly blonde hair, and tugs sharply in warning.

"Only you could be haughty about getting fucked on the sinks," Emma grumbles, before charting a less painful course north with her lips, the tip of her nose grazing Regina's already damp underwear before kissing her way way to Regina's other knee.

"Would you rather go back and _share_?" Regina sneers, enjoying the extra leverage that a hold on Emma's hair gives her, punctuating the question with another sharp tug.

"You'd cry if I did," Emma mocks, her fingers massaging Regina's bare calves, chuckling softly as Regina flexes the muscles in response. "You've already given away how much you want me, just by showing up."

"And if I needed my car serviced, I'd have gone to the garage," Regina bites back. "Don't overestimate your value, dear. That's an amateur mistake."

"I'm no amateur," Emma agrees with a shrug, pulling Regina's legs over Emma's shoulders and pressing her mouth against the silk barrier of Regina's underwear, starting with the first few teasing flicks that make Regina's hips jolt forward in anticipation. But then Emma is getting up off her knees, forcing Regina's legs higher as she stands, until Regina's head thumps against the dingy mirror, its silvered surface peeling in the corners and distorting the poor light in the room. "I'd grab on to something, if I were you," Emma adds, and in one fluid gesture she's split the seams of Regina's almost brand new panties and thrown them somewhere in the corner.

The toes of her black high heels are hitting the mirror now, and Regina feels thoroughly pinned in this position, and far too exposed if anyone comes looking for Emma. Expecting a quick fumble fully-clothed to take the edge off, Regina is now reminded of the considerable upper body strength that Emma is holding her in place with. She's about to protest until she feels Emma's tongue against now-bare flesh and the change in pressure hits Regina like a truck.

"Fuck!" she gasps, but can't form words for much longer, because Emma is in relentless mode now, perhaps with her mind on the invisible ticking clock that's looming over this encounter.

"Mmm," Emma murmurs, letting the vibration of the sound course through Regina's hardened clit before circling it in strong, determined circles, the rhythm disrupted only when Emma shifts lower and begins thrusting her tongue inside Regina, the muscle held rigid in the way that drives Regina halfway out of her mind. There's a twinge of pain in her lower back, sharp and enough to make her gasp in pain, but the surging tide of endorphins quickly cancels it out, even though Emma pauses for a second to peer through the 'v' of Regina's legs in question, perhaps even in fleeting concern.

"Keep. Going," Regina demands through gritted teeth. If she's going to spend the rest of the week favoring her back when she sits, it's damn well going to be worth it. Emma, for once, does what the hell she's told and by the time she sucks Regina's clit between her lips, Regina is arching into a desperately necessary orgasm that flows through every inch of her, the warmth and relaxation of it reaching all the way to her toes.

"Wow," Emma teases, pulling away and wiping her mouth with the sleeve-covered back of her hand, because she has all the class of a serving wench sometimes. "You went off like a rocket. Maybe you shouldn't leave it 'til you're desperate for it."

"Be quiet," Regina groans, lowering her legs gently back to the floor and grimacing as she unfolds herself into a more dignified position. Emma moves in for a sudden kiss, but Regina ducks it, reaching for her purse instead. She roots through the black Prada bag, dislodging her careful arrangement of keys, stationery and other essentials, eyes flicking to the mirror once her search produces the necessary plastic bottle.

Her mascara is smeared from the heat that flushed her face and made a light sweat break out, and her lipstick is a ghost from the way she was biting on her bottom lip and then forcing them together in an attempt to hold back her reactions to Emma's touch. Regina frowns at her crumpled red blouse, the stiff cotton no match for her bending and twisting it seems. Her blazer is out of place, and she shrugs it back into place, using her free hand to tug her skirt back down. She'll have a word about the discarding of expensive underwear in a moment, just as soon as she deals with the pain in her back.

Emma's watching her in the gloomy mirror the whole time, blonde curls even messier than normal, a pink flush of arousal evident on the chest visible above her black tank top. Her leather jacket is thrown beside the sinks, some leaking water trickling towards it that Regina doesn't particularly care to warn her about.

"You'll get your turn," Regina huffs, popping the cap and shaking out the first two pills. The rest she can top up in the car, without any judging eyes on her. "Aren't you going to demand I share this time?"

"Nah," Emma shakes her head, shoving her hands in the pockets of her black jeans, but not before Regina notices the shake. "Part of the deal is nothing else, not just giving up the booze. Besides, they can really take the edge off, and you're not getting away with it that easily."

"You're not seriously going along with this charade?" Regina mocks, turning to look Emma in the eye. "Or have you let those idiots convince you there really is something wrong with you?"

It's wrong, and Regina knows it.

She knows a desperate soul as well as anyone, and Emma Swan is in pain so palpable that it hangs like a cloud around her, something almost tangible. But the urge to compete, to prove Snow White wrong over and over again, surges up just as surely as the pills Regina dry swallows go down. Regina knows all too well that feeling like she has no control is the real reason to try and obliterate the world around her, and perhaps the Savior is simply doing what Regina did with magic and murder, only in this world its done with liquor and ill-advised but satisfying sex.

Or maybe Emma is an alcoholic, finally reaching out for the kind of structured help that Regina has never been offered or understood. Like Emma's mother before her, any slight deviation from the paths of goodness and wellness will be seized upon like a national emergency-everyone from friends to strangers offering everything they can to help the golden child.

It's that bitterness that makes Regina's decision for her.

"Are you sure you don't want some?" Regina asks, shaking out another pill and hiding her smirk as Emma's greedy gaze falls on Regina's palm. "Only you seemed very insistent that I taste myself on your lips, and if we were to combine the two..."

When there's not even a squeak of protest from Emma, Regina places the pill quite deliberately on the curve of her own tongue, pulling Emma close with forceful fingers wrapping around the back of her neck. For a moment, a storm roils across Emma's features, those sea-green eyes darkening in determination, but as Regina slips her tongue into Emma's open, waiting mouth, the conflict passes. It's a messy kiss, wet and uncoordinated, and after a moment Emma pulls away to swallow, the chalky bitterness of the pill no doubt unpleasant for her.

"I'll take another," Emma dares her, but she claims another kiss before Regina can move, expressing frustration in the sharpness of her teeth pulling on Regina's bottom lip in the way she can't help moaning about. Her lips tingle as she reaches for another pill, and Emma watches intently as they repeat the little dance, eyes flickering only once to the door, perhaps her last thought of what she should be doing right in this moment.

"Thanks," she says, full of mock sincerity. "Now, about my turn..."

"Well," Regina replies, yanking the tank top up over Emma's breasts, and unhooking her bra with the same directness. "I should really leave you here. Let you get back to your important meeting."

"And yet you're undressing me," Emma points out, helpfully popping the buttons on her jeans.

"You're right," Regina admits, slipping her right hand beneath the stiff denim, fingertips wedged against the more pedestrian cotton of Emma's underwear. "Which makes me a very," Regina pauses, pressing her fingers hard against Emma's clit, panties already soaked through. "Very," another press of her fingers, this time curling them to prolong the pressure. "Bad influence."

"Uh huh," Emma breathes, her head already tipping back as she fights not to close her eyes. "Not gonna argue with that."

Regina withdraws her hand in one swift motion.

"The hell?" Emma splutters, glaring at Regina again.

"If you're too weak-willed to resist me, I'll have to help you out," Regina explains, reaching for her purse after wiping her hands a little theatrically on a paper towel. "So run along back to your meeting. Don't let me stop you."

It takes more resolve than she'd like to admit, but Regina turns on her heel and marches out of the washroom, turning down the first corridor on the right and slipping out of the fire exit she'd come in through in the first place. Too much has changed since the curse broke, but Regina still knows this town like the back of her hand, convenient exits and all.

She's so sure that Emma will slink back to her gathering of whiners, that Regina doesn't think to scan the parking lot as she marches back towards the Mercedes. She's putting the key in the lock when she's tackled from the side, hitting the tarmac hard as the air whooshes from her lungs.

"What the-" she starts, but the shock of blonde hair isn't really a surprise.

"I don't take well to being left hanging, your Majesty," Emma grunts, picking herself up off Regina. Emma's wild-eyed, her clothes now wet from the wet tarmac, and Regina doesn't want to think what this has done to the fine material of her suit. Thankfully the Vicodin has kicked in, so she won't feel the pain until she's poking the bruises in the morning.

"You could at least help me up," Regina groans, but using the door handle for leverage, she manages it. "You didn't go back to your meeting."

"No," Emma says, grabbing Regina by the hips and pressing her against her own car. "I had more pressing matters to attend to."

"You are not going to do anything out here where anyone can see," Regina warns, but Emma just leans in close to make sure Regina sees the smirk.

"Oh, I am," Emma says, smug to a fault. "And the way I know that is you're already clenching your fists because you're not sure you can stop yourself from touching me."

"How a friendless orphan got to be so confident is beyond me," Regina sighs, and it's accidental on her part, but it makes Emma choke on her retort, face turning an unattractive shade of puce.

"I'm not-" Emma spits, apparently so angered that she doesn't know which part of the comment to attack first. Regina smiles quickly at having regained something like the upper hand.

"Oh, did I upset you?" Regina teases, her babying voice simply gasoline on the barely-contained fire that is Emma's temper. A good girl might know when to stop, recognize where the risk outweighs the reward, but Regina has long been hopeless at knowing when to hold back, and sometimes she thinks she lacks the ability to altogether. "Question is, Emma, whether that's reason enough to stop you begging me to fuck you, after all?"

Emma hesitates for a moment, the murderous look in her eyes offset by flaring nostrils and heaving breaths that Regina hasn't seen since the hospital, on the joint-worst night of her life. Just when Regina thinks she's about to receive the slap she actually kind of craves, Emma grabs her by the lapels of her blazer instead, crushing Regina's lips in a kiss that might as well be a punch.

Tired of teasing, Regina relents and slips her hands beneath Emma's tank top, pressing palms flat against the soft muscles of her abdomen. Emma leans into the touch, trying to use her strength to her advantage, but Regina's well-versed in how to take control over a stronger body.

With a sharp shove and a twist of Emma's hips, Regina has her pressed against the side of some stranger's truck.

"Not so upset, hmm?" Regina confirms, before latching onto the straining muscle on the side of Emma's neck. The girl is so delicate in these isolated ways that Regina finds her mind wandering to the old world, to memories of staring in a mirror and demanding that Sidney call her the fairest of all. Snow would have been no challenge to that, not with her homely features and childish pout, but Emma, had she grown there would have been competition indeed.

There isn't much room to maneuver at first, since Regina has Emma pinned firmly in place, but nonetheless Regina lets her hand grasp Emma's breast, through the fabric at first, cheap and worn beneath Regina's hands, and then under it, with the far more pleasant sensation of soft cotton the only barrier to her touch.

Emma's nipple is already stiff, from arousal or cold Regina can't be sure, but it hardens further under deft pinches and flicks that make Emma's stony defiance in the slightest of squirming motions and quietest of moans.

"This is how I'd fuck a girl like you," Regina whispers, lying through her teeth. "Back in my castle, I mean. And you might be a princess-in name only-but this is how you're used to being treated, isn't it? I don't need to see your face, and you don't need to see mine. Cheap, dirty, anonymous."

"I happen to choose those things," Emma grits out, her pitch rising slightly as Regina's other hand starts unbuttoning jeans again.

"Is this how my son was conceived?" Regina asks, in spite of herself. Her voice is thick with the emotion of it. "With that overgrown manchild Rumple ruined all our lives to find? Another tawdry little moment in a backseat, in a motel where you can't turn the light on because you don't dare to look at the sheets?"

"Go to hell," Emma spits, and this time she actually tries to fight Regina off. "You don't talk about it. Don't talk about Henry at a time like this."

Regina responds by slipping her fingers beneath cotton panties again, her fingers sliding firmly against a shocking wetness that even she hadn't anticipated.

"See?" Regina crows. "You don't care what it takes, so long as I keep touching you."

"No," Emma lies, her arm flailing out as though to strike, but instead her hand wraps around Regina's neck, pulling her closer still. "But... fuck, I need something... something."

"Yes, you do," Regina confirms. "You need a drink. Or some of my little helpers. Or maybe you need me to do this to you a few times a week until you can start to forget we hate each other."

Her fingers are moving with real intent now, Emma sinking into the contact degree by degree, the tension in her shoulders disappearing, until it's all in the trembling thighs that barely hold her up. But for Regina's insistent groping and the cool metal surface of the truck, Emma would have already crumpled to the ground, Regina's sure of it.

"I don't... hate you," Emma admits, twisting just enough to let her lips brush Regina's for a moment.

"Well, you should," Regina replies, and despite a momentary protest from her wrist, she yanks Emma's jeans down far enough to get room to work. The rocking of Emma's hips practically pulls Regina's fingers inside before she even decides to make the move, and her silent punishment is to pinch harder and more insistently at Emma's nipple until her back arches and the breathy 'oh's from her mouth start running together in a low kind of sobbing.

It's adding a third finger that has Emma on the edge, but while Regina isn't entirely experienced in other women, Regina mimics her own actions from many a lonely but satisfying night, keeping Emma half a moment from orgasm until she's pounding on the side of the truck with her fist, unable to verbalize her demand for release.

"Something you wanted?" Regina taunts, stilling the determined thrust of her fingers and easing the pressure from the heel of her hand against Emma's clit. That Regina's hand is so slippery just makes her feel a little drunk on the smugness, and she vows in that moment that Emma will lick every last inch of Regina's hand clean.

Just as soon as the stubborn idiot admits she wants Regina to let her come.

"Do it," Emma spits after a moment, tugging on Regina's neck in warning. If anyone stumbles across them, in this dark corner of the parking lot, there'll be no excuse they can offer. Regina's painfully aware that this is exactly what it must look like and her own knees are still just a little weak from Emma's efforts in the bathroom earlier.

"Do what?" Regina asks, mocking with her fake confusion.

"Keep going," Emma groans. "Please."

The word hangs between them like a handshake, quivering as they wait for it to be accepted. Regina weighs the cruelty of stopping again, but one meeting with the ground has been enough for one day. Besides, there's some small part of her that wants to see Emma undone again, that unguarded bliss in her expression when she forgets who she is and where she is and who exactly is touching her; that's a sight to see, and Regina doesn't want to deny herself any longer.

She resumes her movement then, shorter and sharper this time, fingers curled almost protectively over the small ridges that are reducing Emma to a shaking mess in Regina's grip.

When Emma comes, it's almost resentful, and Regina savors every second. Her arm wrapped around Emma's chest means Regina can feel every ripple and hear every gulp, breath and moan of satisfaction. When Regina starts to move away, Emma is the one to clutch at Regina's forearm and hold her in place. With a shrug, Regina turns Emma, fingers not slipping out even a little, and this time when she comes, Emma sighs her climax against the hollow of Regina's collarbone.

"That was worth the wait," Emma says eventually, eyes still squeezed shut as she leans back against the truck's door. Regina frees her aching hand with some reluctance, and as she smiles in something like victory, she makes good on her promise to herself, pressing sticky fingers against Emma's lips until she takes the hint and begins to slowly lick them clean, unfazed at being commanded to taste herself that way.

Regina's about to say something in response when the door to the Rec Center is thrown open, light spilling a little too close to the dark corner Regina parked in. Both women begin hastily fixing their clothes without speaking, and they seem to have gone unnoticed as the group members file out into a brisk Maine evening.

"Well," Emma starts to say, but she freezes at the sound of her own name. "Shit!" She gasps, looking at Regina in panic. "My parents."

"Emma?" Charming's voice booms out, no doubt he honed his projection during all those years of chasing sheep through dull green valleys.

"So much for anonymous," Regina sighs, rolling her eyes as she pulls a pair of gloves from her purse. Emma's clothes may be back in order, but her face is flushed and the wild bounce to her blonde curls suggests she's been doing a lot more than sharing her feelings over lukewarm coffee. "Go to them, or else they'll see you with me, and I am in no mood for another lecture."

"Too late," Emma says, as Snow appears in the glow from the doorway.

"Emma!" She calls out, and Regina focuses very hard on keeping the sneer from her face. "We just came down to see how your first meeting went."

"You're not really supposed to do that," Emma starts to explain, grinding the toe of her leather boots against the parking lot surface. "It's anonymous, remember? A place for people to get away from judgment."

"We're not judging," Charming interrupts. "But the book your mom read said that it's important to support you in person wherever possible."

"Why is she here?" Snow snaps, frowning at Regina. "You mean she's allowed to come check up on you, but we're not?"

"Relax," Regina sighs, unable to keep quiet a moment longer. "I simply asked Emma when we could meet to discuss Henry's schedule, and she said to meet her here after her... appointment."

"Right," Emma says, seizing gratefully on the lie. "We were just going to have a drink, I mean a coffee, and sort out the next week or two."

"Well, maybe you could do that tomorrow," Charming says, laying a heavy hand on Emma's shoulder. "Because we were thinking that until you're feeling better, you and Henry should come stay in the new house with us."

"Why would I agree to that?" Emma asks, and Regina watches for the twitch in Emma's cheek to say that she's halfway to pissed; Regina doesn't have to watch for long.

"Just to take the pressure off," Snow assures her. "You know I'm happy to cook and help with Henry, so it just makes sense-"

"No, thank you," Emma says, as firmly as Regina's ever heard her refuse anything.

"It's just the lease is due for renewal on your place," Charming chimes in again. "And while Kathryn is working really hard to get everything fixed up and transferred into the right names, there's a chance that property won't be ours in a couple of weeks anyway. And we mentioned that we had room for you, which Kathryn seemed to think was a bit of a relief, with all the rehoming issues..."

"So I'm going to be homeless?"Emma splutters. Of all the problems she expected once the curse broke, this hadn't even made the top twenty.

"Not necessarily," Emma's father assures her, as patronizing as ever. If she were a little bit closer, Regina might just find it impossible to resist kicking him in the shins. "But that sort of thing can be stressful, so we didn't want you to have to deal with it. I know you want to find a home here in Storybrooke-"

"I want to find a lot of things," Emma cuts him off. "I mean, there's nothing to stop me going back to Boston now, right?"

"You wouldn't!" Snow barks, right before Regina can express her own horror at the idea. Emma leaving is one thing, but Henry being so far away is quite another. The worst part of it being that Regina knows he wouldn't think twice before agreeing to go with Emma, regardless of their current disappointment in each other. "You only just found us, Emma."

"And whose fault is that? I looked for a family my whole life," Emma sighs, shoving clenched fists into her jacket pockets. "But all I got was you guys."

It's such a cheap shot that Regina almost applauds.

"Emma!" Charming scolds, as Snow bursts into tears, her husband pulling her close while Emma stares at the ground, every bit the rebellious teenager. Regina remembers that impulse well, in fact she still fights it (and loses) on a near-daily basis. She also remembers the consequences though, her mother's sudden white-hot rages and the cuts and bruises that would persist through every attempt at a healing charm; it's just another way in which these people will have it bad, but never just quite as bad as it could be.

"I didn't mean it like that," Emma says, but her lowered head suggests she meant it exactly that way. "I'm just tired. From all the uh, sharing."

"We understand this is a difficult time," Charming persists. "But we only want what's best for you."

"Thanks," Emma says. "Anyway, I have this stuff to sort out for Henry. So I'll come see you tomorrow, I guess?"

"Okay," Snow sniffs, just about getting her emotions in check. Regina's palm itches with the urge to slap her, and doing it with the hand that just fucked Emma has its own twisted appeal.

The two idiots skulk off towards their own car, and Regina watches them go, keeping her eyes very carefully looking in any direction that isn't Emma's. The avoidance only lasts so long, before Emma sighs loudly enough to crack a rib, and Regina is forced to pay attention once more.

"Enjoy the show?" Emma asks. "Seems like the kind of crappy thing to say that you'd approve of."

"Need a drink?" Regina enquires, and it's only half-malicious at best. She's already thinking about the little white ovals in her purse, and just like that she can feel the aches and pains start to creep back in, like a chill creeping over her body.

"Ha, ha," Emma says, dry as the desert. "We really should make a plan for Henry."

"Well, you can always move in with me," Regina offers. "It's a very big house, we'd barely see each other. And it might make... this... happen in more sanitary locations."

"You're hilarious tonight," Emma says. "I don't feel like wrestling with my car tonight, though - gimme a ride home?"

Regina shrugs, unlocking the car and waiting for Emma to come around and slip into the passenger seat.

"I meant it," Regina says, starting the car and flicking the radio straight to classical, not because she prefers it, but because Emma actively doesn't. "It would be better for Henry than living somewhere that looks like a frat party just stumbled through it."

"Hey!" Emma protests. "I keep the place neat. Mostly."

"The offer is there," Regina says, keeping her eyes trained on the road like ogres might appear at any moment. "Try not to hurt yourself by thinking about it."

"Sure," Emma says, bringing her knees up to her chest, not bothering to buckle up. "I'll start packing tonight."

She dissolves into helpless laughter, and Regina grips the steering wheel so tightly the seams of her gloves threaten to burst. One of these days, Regina vows to herself again, she'll learn not to offer anything to the one group of people who throw everything back in her face.

* * *

**A/N: This fic has been kicking. my. ass. so please let know what you think and if it's worth all this blood, sweat and tears!**


	8. Chapter 8

Regina is concentrating on her last swirl of frosting, wielding the piping bag like a familiar old weapon, and it's only when the blue swirl is perfect that the burgundy leather jacket registers in her sight line.

"Sheriff Swan," Regina greets her crisply. "Are you actually still claiming that title? Only no one seems to have seen much of you this past week."

"David was covering," Emma says, eyes obscured behind dark glasses despite the weak spring sunshine that's barely filtering through the kitchen windows. "And I figured you'd appreciate the extra time with Henry."

"I did," Regina admits, running her hands under the faucet for a moment before drying them on a clean towel. "That doesn't mean you can use me as a nanny service."

"What about other services?" Emma asks, the suggestive lift of her eyebrows at odds with her slumped posture.

"I thought you made your position quite clear on that when you laughed in my face," Regina reminds her, lifting the cupcakes into place on the silver cake stand. "Besides, Henry will be done with school soon."

"What?" Emma approaches now, eyeing the cakes like someone who hasn't eaten in a couple of days; her pallor and thinner-than-usual face certainly don't suggest any time has been spent at Snow White's dinner table. "Are you saying we can't have sex because I didn't accept a joking offer for me to move in with you?"

"I wasn't joking," Regina snaps.

"Right," Emma nods in understanding. "You don't joke. Sidney told me that. Where is he, anyway?"

"Now you think to ask?" Regina sighs, sliding the cake stand away from Emma's slowly extending arm. "He's in the hospital, recovering. The curse took its toll on him. Mentally."

"And he's one of the ones you liked," Emma accuses, but there's more mischief than malice in it. "Speaking of the effects of your curse, any chance you could tell my mother that short hair really doesn't suit her? I tried mentioning it the other day, and it didn't go well."

Regina sniffs, because talking about Snow is never on her list of priorities.

"Is that where you've been hiding out all week?" Regina demands, checking the clock on the wall. She's been trying desperately not to fall into the habit again, but expecting Henry home has made each of the last few days considerably easier. His lectures about the evils of magic have been less fun, admittedly, and the resulting headaches have had her reaching for the little orange bottles just a bit more frequently.

"I was at my place," Emma says, snatching a cupcake when Regina looks away for another moment. She speaks around a mouthful of sponge and frosting. "Withdrawal, it turns out, is an even bigger bitch than you."

"I thought you didn't really have a problem? And those are for Henry," Regina protests, clutching at her apron to prevent her snatching the baked goods back.

"All twelve of them?" Emma mocks. "And I had you pegged for one of those health freak moms, all organic vegetables and tofu."

"Which just goes to show," Regina answers. "That you really don't know the first thing about me. Sugar isn't poison. Everything in moderation."

"Yeah that sounds like you," Emma fires back. "Like when you spiked a turnover with a moderate amount of sleeping curse."

"Did you want something?" Regina snaps, knuckles whitening now. "If it's just to take Henry from me, surely you could collect him from school?"

"I just came to say hi," Emma says, and the lie isn't smooth enough to pass. "I mean, I haven't seen you since Friday. Or maybe I could just smell the baking."

"Touch another cake and lose those fingers," Regina warns, but Emma is already on the move, prize claimed. Instead of retreating though, she advances on Regina, who backs up against her kitchen sink despite telling herself to stand her ground. "Don't you have an addiction meeting to go to?" Regina asks, attempting to regain some traction.

"Not right now, no," Emma answers, undeterred. There's barely a few inches of space between them, and Emma pushes her aviators up into unruly blonde curls, revealing an expression that's hungry for a lot more than cupcakes. "Although speaking of your little interruption, I wouldn't say no to some of your back pills."

"What happened to withdrawal?" Regina presses.

"It sucks, so I have no intention of going through it again," Emma says, shrugging in that affable way she has. "Like you just said, everything in moderation. That's the new plan. That and spending less time around my family."

"Your addicts' group would disagree," Regina feels the upper hand returning as Emma's face scrunches in irritation. "Am I to assume you're not embracing their path to recovery?"

"Turns out when your concerned relatives are fairytale characters, you don't really need to do the whole thing," Emma confesses. "Just look like you are. I'm guessing you guys didn't have a lot of counseling back in the Enchanted Forest."

"You guess correctly," Regina says.

"Well, that explains you, then," Emma says, pulling back just in time to avoid Regina's slap of frustration. "Hey, less of the domestic violence, your Majesty."

"Says the woman who tied me up and... well. In this very room," Regina accuses, folding her arms over her chest. She feels the crackle of magic in her veins again, a side-effect of any strong emotion. Thankfully the pills she took with a light lunch are still dulling the full effect of it, and not giving in is a little easier than usual.

"Still too shy to say I fucked you?" Emma is back in Regina's space again, closer than ever, cupcake still in hand. "You should loosen up a little, you priss. Here, have some cake."

"I don't want any," Regina insists as the small cake hovers in front of her mouth.

"Oh, Regina," Emma breathes, pressing the creamy blue frosting against Regina's lips. She darts her tongue out to lick it away, instinct more than anything. The instant rush of sugar makes her regret it. "We both know that's not true."

"Emma-"

"Self-denial is just so fucking boring, don't you think?" Emma says, but any hope Regina has of responding disappears in the pressure of Emma's mouth on hers, cupcake tossed to the floor like an afterthought.

"You've got a lot of nerve," Regina seethes when Emma releases her, but there's no denying the spike in Regina's heart rate or the tingling in her lips that's insisting on more, more, more. How ridiculous that a woman who tastes like strawberry chapstick and the antiseptic aftertaste of alcohol should provoke this reaction, over and over again.

"That's not all I've got a lot of," Emma says, running her finger through the frosting of another cupcake on the stand, ruining it in one stroke. She contemplates for a moment, seemingly intent on sucking her own finger, but instead she smears the cool cream in a brisk line down Regina's neck, making her recoil on instinct.

"That is not what I...oh," Regina can't finish the scolding when Emma's tongue is boldly licking that trail of blue from her neck, lingering at first in the sensitive hollow at the base, before setting nerve endings alight in one long stripe that ends with a less-than-gentle sucking of the skin beneath Regina's ear. It's enough to make her weak in the knees, and there's nothing she can do about the whimper that passes her lips.

"Pick a surface," Emma murmurs against her collarbone. "Or I'll fuck you right here on the floor."

Regina could respond in a hundred different ways, not least shoving Emma away once and for all, but that's just not what her body is insisting she do.

Instead she pushes Emma back against the counter, and drops to her knees with as much grace as she can summon. Emma doesn't require instruction to unbutton her jeans and push them down her legs, and Regina pulls them free along with the omnipresent boots, not caring how rough she is in the process.

"Thought your back hurt," Emma teases, and Regina responds by running her fingers over wet flesh, making the tease dissolve into a hiss of need. It would seem a week alone has become just too long for Emma Swan, and if that pains her to realize, Regina's glad to have caused it.

"Do you ever get tired of the sound of your own voice?" Regina questions, but she doesn't wait for a response before leaning in to let her tongue flicker over Emma's exposed clit.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, nobody is tired of the sobbing, desperate way Emma is burbling Regina's name.

After forty, there are no longer actual words in there, but Regina finds she still doesn't mind.

* * *

Emma has four fingers inside Regina, and is insisting she's wet enough for another without any additional help, when the front door opens with its usual creak of hinges. Funny, Regina thinks in that moment, that in an otherwise spotless and modern house, she's kept that one trait of a castle in her home.

It takes them both a long moment. But the realization, when it dawns, is as sudden as it is horrifying. Regina pulls away so hard that it hurts when Emma's fingers are wrenched out of her, but she can't focus on that when she's scrambling to pull her clothes back into some kind of order.

Footsteps sound in the hall leading to the kitchen, and although Regina is almost presentable, Emma is still half-naked and clutching at random items in a bid to organize herself. She's holding one boot and a cheese grater, which would make Regina laugh if the situation weren't so dire.

"In here," Regina hisses, steering Emma into the pantry, kicking her jeans and other boot in behind her. "Not a peep out of you."

She closes the pantry just in time, as Henry comes bounding into the room.

"Hi Mom, did you-hey, are those cupcakes?"

"Yes, Henry," Regina breathes, hoping her panic won't show. Luckily, it seems the lure of baked goods is about to save the day.

* * *

"Uh, I think I want to go back to Emma's," Henry says, fork hovering over his plate. Regina manages not to wince at the thought of Emma creeping out of the kitchen door, redressed and mortified. "I mean, it doesn't have to be tonight, but I want to."

"Okay," Regina says, putting her glass down carefully, because she's just a fraction away from crushing it altogether. "Just call her, when you're ready for her to come get you."

"Thanks, Mom," Henry says, between mouthfuls of linguine. "She's trying really hard. And you are, too. I just want everyone to be happy."

"You know all I need to be happy is you, Henry," Regina reminds him, blinking back scalding and unexpected tears.

"I think maybe you need more than that," Henry says, and Regina can't help wondering why he worked that out so much quicker than she did.

* * *

He can't make it to bedtime without calling.

Emma, in her rattling yellow car, is there a half hour later. She doesn't dare approach the house this time, at least, and Henry runs out to her, doubling back for an awkward hug that Regina still doesn't want to end.

"Call me," Regina blurts when he wriggles from her grasp. "If there's any problem with Emma, and drinking... it's no problem to come here, any time."

She resents saying things like this to Emma, or worse her odious family, but making the offer to Henry feels like the very least Regina can do in this endless, painful quest to win him back. She feels like one of the unlucky characters from folk tales (which, she remembers now, she actually is to the rest of this world) doomed to try and fail and just keep trying, the plucky idiot who can never take the damn hint.

"Thanks, Mom," Henry says, and the fact that he hesitates before running down the path to Emma is the highlight of Regina's week.

That, she realizes, is why she has to achieve a far more permanent way of bringing Henry home where he belongs.

* * *

Kathryn looks entirely out of place in Regina's old office, right until Regina knocks on the open door. Then, a familiar shift occurs, and Regina watches the seamless transition from distracted Kathryn to focused and regal Abigail. They might have been allies, once upon a time, but Regina's pursuit of the curse closed off those more sensible alternatives all too quickly.

"Regina!" Kathryn exclaims, rushing out from behind the messy stacks of paper on Regina's desk. "You are just the person I wanted to see."

Even now, Regina still finds that impossible to believe. Kathryn's bottomless well of forgiveness-after a reprimand that left Regina's ears ringing and her heart somewhere in her boots-is so alien to Regina that it makes her skin crawl every time it's demonstrated. Even Snow and Charming are easier to be around, their antipathy familiar enough to handle competently.

"Having fun with the property deeds?" Regina asks. "I'm sorry they're not more organized. As you've probably discovered, it took a few different configurations to get everything running smoothly."

"How you kept all of this in your head, I will never know," Kathryn admits, and forgiveness or not, she can't quite bring herself to offer her arms in a hug. Instead she pats Regina gingerly on the upper arm and shows her to the empty visitor's chair. "Did you need something?"

"I came to ask a small favor," Regina admits. "About the converted warehouse property on-"

"You mean Mary Margaret's old place?" Kathryn is already reaching for some papers. "Yeah, that one is still in your name, although the rest of the building is owned by Gold.

"Right," Regina agrees. "Only these days, Mary Margaret has taken up residence in your former home."

"I don't mind," Kathryn says, although there's a twitch at the corner of her mouth that just possibly suggests otherwise. "It was never a real marriage, was it?"

"Your feelings probably seemed real," Regina tells her. "You shouldn't ignore them just because other things have changed."

"Well, luckily I don't have time to dwell," Kathryn says, gesturing at the paperwork all over the room. "Once the property is settled we need to move on to some kind of permanent government, the interim measures are causing a lot of discontent."

"You could always reinstate the monarchy," Regina muses. "Although if you do, perhaps it's better to count me out."

"I think we're going to stick with democracy," Kathryn says, and it isn't entirely unkind. "Maybe not this time, but maybe in the future you could run for Mayor again. You're the only one who knows how this town really works."

"Maybe," Regina dismisses the idea with a wave of her hand. "But about that property, I need it to be unavailable to Emma Swan."

"Regina," Kathryn warns. "I've let a lot of things go, but if you think our friendship means you can drag me into your feud with David and his family..."

"Not at all," Regina says. "I simply want to offer her some space in my oversized mansion."

"Because it means Henry comes home, too," Kathryn puts the pieces together after just a moment. "I know you miss him, but surely there's a better way than making someone homeless?"

Regina knows she's going to need something else to generate sympathy, and though the words already stick to her tongue like a cloying poison, she knows she has to say them.

"It's not just for Henry," she admits, eyes fixed firmly on the toes of her own burgundy pumps. "I don't know if you've heard on the town grapevine, but-"

"I've heard," Kathryn acknowledges, putting the papers down altogether.

"We're very difficult people," Regina says, making the understatement of the century, and possibly the one before, too. "But I've come to realize that having Emma around might be as good for me as it is for Henry."

"Careful," Kathryn teases. "Don't get too romantic, now."

"Romance is for princesses," Regina reminds her. "This world is considerably more real."

"I can't make any promises," Kathryn sighs. "And frankly, I don't think I should be encouraging this kind of manipulation."

"Fine," Regina says, trying not to sound huffy as she stands to leave. "You'll do what you think is best, I'm sure."

"Regina," Kathryn says, the tone of her voice pleading now. "If I can give you a little happiness? I absolutely will. But I won't make Emma miserable in the process."

"Because living with me would make anyone miserable?" Regina asks, raising an eyebrow in a failed attempt at nonchalance. "Good luck with the property, Kathryn. I'll see myself out."

* * *

Regina's so intent on getting to her car that she doesn't see the man crossing her path until it's far too late and the collision course is set. She sends him tumbling towards the asphalt, and steps over him like he's nothing more than a simple distraction.

"Wait!" He calls out, scrambling to his feet. Regina stops, sighs deeply, and turns around, only to be confronted with Henry's other biological parent and accordingly, one of her least favorite people.

"Run along, son of Rumple," Regina sighs. "I'm in no mood."

"You're not gonna apologize for knocking me to the ground?" Neal demands, but he's smiling around the words. "Never mind, I'm glad we ran into one another. Literally."

"If you want to discuss access to Henry, I suggest you stick with your ex-girlfriend," Regina says through gritted teeth.

"No, that's all cool," Neal insists. "It's just... I wanted to tell you something, because I don't think I should tell Emma. Or at least, I don't want to be the one who does tell Emma."

"If this is a 'contact all your previous sexual partners' situation, I'm not interested," Regina says, starting to move towards her car again. The arches of her feet are aching from the now unfamiliar situation of a day spent entirely on three-inch heels.

"But I heard that you should be," Neal butts in again, and he catches up in easy strides, before leaning against the side of Regina's car, effectively block her access to the door lock. He looks as casual as ever, in a blue windbreaker and worn jeans, and try though she might, Regina can't discern what attracted Emma to the man in the first place.

"I don't see how that's any of your business," Regina snaps. "And if Charming was so horrified at the idea, he should have kept his stupid mouth shut."

"I got it from Ruby, actually," Neal says. "And if it's something that's gonna affect Henry, I guess I do want to know."

"Listen here, Baelfire," Regina threatens, and the magical grip on his throat is pure instinct. His eyes bug out as she slams him against the car. "It's bad enough you donated the sperm to make Henry in the first place. But I will not stand here and make small talk with the man who killed my mother."

"I didn't kill anyone," Neal protests when Regina's grip slackens. "I'm sorry for bringing Tamara here, but I had no idea she was looking to drain magic. From what I heard your Mom's passing wasn't exactly-"

Regina squeezes hard enough to break bones this time, but nothing gives.

"You don't mention her, do you hear me?" Regina is aware of the red mist rising, of the stretching feeling somewhere in the front of her head that serves as a warning. Get too angry, let them take too much, and it's back to elaborate dresses and hopeless schemes, lashing out at everyone who comes near; if nothing else, Regina won't let these idiots drag her back to that particular misery.

She lets Neal go, and he slumps, coughing and spluttering.

"Like I said," Regina follows up. "I'm in no mood."

"Regina," Neal insists, face a livid shade of puce still. "Mary Margaret came to see me the other day."

"So what?" Regina snaps, unlocking her car.

"She suggested I... well, she made it very clear that this would be a good time to make a move on Emma. That she would support it, because I'm Henry's father."

"You're kidding," Regina says, trying not to roll her eyes at the predictability. "Snow White, the walking tourist brochure for True Love, is trying to forced some kind of... arranged courtship?"

"David suggested marriage would be on the table. Started talking about land and castles back in the Enchanted Forest, I swear to God," Neal supplies. "So you see why I'm not bringing this to Emma, right? Kinda feels like she already has enough on her plate."

"And I'm currently picking through the bowl of cherries that my life has become, hmm?" Regina asks, although her heart isn't in the accusation, not with her mind already whirling over this latest development. "Wait, are you planning to make a move on Emma?"

"Not that it's any of your business," Neal wiseasses, scrunching up his face as he echoes Regina's words back at her. "But no. I care about her, I don't think that's a secret. But I'm here for Henry. And to see if my father is ever going to give up magic."

"I wouldn't hold my breath on that," Regina advises him, and there's a moment of camaraderie in it that she doesn't expect. In another configuration of events, Neal might even have been a brother to her, Regina knows, but they'd all be such different people that she can't bear to think about it. "Still, the two idiots must be particularly panicked about my... influence, if they came to you. That news has brightened my day, just a little."

"It wasn't pretty," Neal admits. "To hear them tell it, you're pouring bourbon down her throat every night. Everything would all be magically better if Emma could just find a nice man and turn into a prince. They don't understand why she wants anything other than to be a mother and a wife."

"Snow should know better," Regina muses. "But then she was always good at overlooking the misery of others."

"Anyway, I did my duty here," Neal says, shoving his hands in his pockets. "Tell Emma, don't tell Emma. But if she finds out some other way, I guess you know how freaked out and angry she's gonna be."

"Well, you'd know all about causing that reaction," Regina admits. "I have to go."

* * *

She sits behind the wheel for a full five minutes, grinding her teeth as Neal walks down the street and ducks out of sight into the park.

A light rain is starting to fall, but once her mind is made up, Regina has no choice but to open the car door again and jog through the change in weather to re-enter the Town Hall.

Kathryn looks up with an apology forming on her lips, but Regina doesn't let her speak.

"Forget everything I asked you," Regina says. "Let Emma keep the apartment, whatever you want. But don't do anything because I asked."

"Regina, are you-"

"Just... I can't make that decision for her," Regina admits, a lifetime of her own decisions being ripped away coming to the fore. "And I won't."

* * *

She stops at the mausoleum on the way home, thankful at least that in the divide and conquer mode the town finds itself in, no one has thought to encroach on her sanctuary.

Paying her respects to mother and father alike, Regina lays carefully selected flowers on top of each block of stone, willing herself to remember the isolated happy memories, not the tears or the bruises, not the pleading or disappointment.

A wave of her hand opens the door to her hideaway, and Regina scolds herself for using magic again, without thinking, only to remember that the real Henry doesn't know it exists. Just another unpleasant surprise from mother, and only in this privacy does Regina let her feelings for the woman bubble to the surface. To outsiders, like Neal, Cora is to be defended to the hilt. He doesn't get to know about the magical straps or forced marriages, especially not when his fiancée's attempt to steal magic killed Cora and very nearly killed Rumplestiltskin, too, but for his dagger's last strands of protection.

Now Cora lies here in cold stone, never again to threaten or praise, and Tamara is adrift somewhere in Neverland, banished by hastily performed magic that Emma could neither understand nor control; perhaps the state she's in now is simply payment for that act, but Regina can still see the unfairness in it.

She fishes the pill bottle from her purse, since the cold down here brings out the aches, right down to the bone. Dry-swallowing two, Regina follows with another two, because she's too busy to be distracted by what feels like tearing in her lower back every time she moves. Thinking is an active proposition for her, pacing and working things out with the sweep of her hands come as naturally as breathing.

There has to be a way to get Henry back without blowing everything up in the process. More than any desire to do good instead of evil, Regina simply lacks the patience for the carnage that her more wicked acts have caused. She wants some love and acceptance now, not rejection and more public scolding.

At a loss, she sinks into a once-favorite chair, the velvet now coated with a thin layer of dust and surveys the trinkets of a life she never wanted.

* * *

It's late when she returns home to an empty house, a chill to the building that not even her top-of-the-range heating system can do anything about.

Regina's hanging her coat, a little sluggish from the extra dose she took before driving home. The deserted streets of Storybrooke pose no threat to her slower reactions, and frankly she's not sure Emma would dare arrest her right now anyway. She's confident of that, until there's a loud knock and she opens the door to find Emma standing on the porch.

"Where's Henry?" Regina demands, insisting to herself that it's the only reason Emma might show up there.

"You want me to move in with you?" Emma demands, and Regina notices then that the slur is back in the words, and the feet are very deliberately planted to stop Emma from swaying too much. A bottle of Maker's Mark appears from where Emma's holding it behind her back, already two-thirds gone. "What are you gonna do about this?"

"I'm not going to do anything," Regina says, and she means it, too. "We all have our ways of coping."

"You're high right now, aren't you?" Emma asks, squinting under the porch light to see if Regina's pupils are dilated, no doubt.

"Yes," Regina says, because she's tired of lying about prescriptions, and she's too aware now to claim the pain is anywhere but in her head, or in places that no painkiller will ever touch. "And it makes me not want to do magic, so that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. You tell me: do I look like I can't function right now?"

"No," Emma admits. "But isn't it a condition of living here? You don't want me to stop?"

"You're a mess," Regina points out. "I'm not sure I want to get to what's underneath your whisky buzz, honestly. At least a drunk mess is something specific, something to deal with."

"I'm not a drunk," Emma wails, but she follows up by taking a mouthful straight from the bottle, sloppy and careless as some splashes over her lips and trails over her chin. "But this is what you're asking for, Regina."

"We'll keep each other in check," Regina drawls, leaning against the doorframe like Emma's a particularly persistent trick or treater who really wants to sing a song for her candy. "Everything in moderation, you said. With both of us here, one can look after Henry if the other needs something... more to take the edge off."

"And if I move in here, you also get Henry," Emma seizes on the obvious point.

"I won't pretend I don't want my son back," Regina confesses. "But I've learned that this new reality means sharing him; I've learned a lot of things."

"Because you understand," Emma says. "Everyone else, they think they know what suffering is, but they have no clue. My parents want me to move in there. They have room."

"They also want you to marry Neal," Regina blurts out, before she can think better of it. "He told me, that they tried to push him to 'rescue' you from me."

"What the fuck?" Emma gasps, and before Regina can so much as duck, the bottle is sailing over her shoulder to smash spectacularly in the foyer.

"Emma!" Regina cautions.

"Oh, magic it clean," Emma sighs. "I won't tell Henry if you don't. Neal really told you that?"

"I have nothing to gain by lying about that."

"You usually find a silver lining, when you lie," Emma accuses. "But no more meetings, no more preaching? Just two people making their own rules, and raising their kid. We're going to fuck it up so badly, Regina."

She moves closer, eyes raking over Regina's slightly-rumpled dress. "But let's face it, you want me so bad you'd do anything to get me to come here. Bad enough to cry about it."

"Stop it," Regina warns, telling herself the shimmer in her eyes is just another side-effect of the Vicodin, but her fingers are reaching for the belt loops of Emma's jeans. "I'm not bringing you here so you can hurt me even more. I won't let you."

"Sure you will," Emma says, right before they kiss.

Regina kisses back with lazy enjoyment, and tells herself that Emma's words aren't true.

* * *

**Thank you all for your reviews, favourites and follows, especially after my insecurity about Chapter Seven. We've got a bit of a rollercoaster over the final four chapters, so I'd love to know how you're feeling about the story at this stage. Reviews and reactions really do help more than you know!**

* * *

**EDIT: In response to a valid criticism, I wanted to share my response to that, with regards to Tamara and the AU nature of this story: **

First of all, I apologise. I unreservedly do.

If this explanation helps, here it is, but feel free to ignore it, because I know intent is not a magic wand. I just wanted to make clear my conscious intent in 'using' Tamara in this way.

I needed, because this story was started way before Miller's Daughter, for Cora to die in a way that wasn't at Snow or Neal's hand - because both of them are directly in Emma's life in the story, and I can't see Regina (much like on the show) going anywhere near Emma while that's the case. Snow killing Cora is a major setback for Swan Queen, and so I stuck with my AU and created a different sequence of events.

Tamara was an addition made while I was editing the story and Cora dying by draining of magic seemed like an appealing way to tie up that loose end - I wasn't happy with the alternatives I had already tried, but it's in no way the focus of or really anything to do with this story. It's an aside, not because I don't like Tamara or dismiss her because of her race/gender, but rather because it's simply a canon fact I needed to establish, but not go on a tangent to explain in any depth. It's, for example, what I wish the show had done to tell us a bunch of backstories we don't need: Nova, Grumpy, Tiny, Frankenstein's brother, James, Jacqueline, etc.

In the same way that I might reference a traumatic event in Regina or Emma's past but not expand upon it.  
Tamara deserves her own stories, I completely agree. But in this AU, she and Cora did meet, it's simply not the focus of the story. To my mind, defeating Cora in a non-cowardly way could actually be considered an heroic act, since Cora was dangerous, and that's why Tamara is mentioned as banished and not killed. Also, I hate Snow with the heat of a nova, so any absolution here is just to keep her whiny ass out of my story more than strictly necessary.

Despite all that, I do see how it could read the way you said and I apologise for the hurt and offence caused. I hope my explanation can be taken as a genuine attempt to shed some light on my thinking, and not as an excuse.


	9. Chapter 9

"What's Emma doing here?" Henry pipes up, causing Emma to freeze mid-pulling-her-shirt-on, and judging by the way Regina scoots out of the bedroom and hurries off with their son, she's not exactly thrilled by the question.

Well. At least that solves the problem of breaking the news to him.

Between Henry's time with Neal and the grandparents, Emma's already bought herself three nights in Regina's bed without having to worry too much about anything but the fact that Regina is a restless sleeper, all flailing limbs and melodramatic pauses in her breathing. Emma, who hasn't shared a bed since Neal, finds the whole thing kind of ruinous for her getting much rest at all.

And yet she keeps rocking up here, night after night. Half of her clothes are filling a few drawers in a guest room, because they have to have some kind of boundaries about all this. The room is, technically, Emma's own to do with what she wants. So for three days now she's been testing Regina in every way possible, to see what limits exist in this messed up Pretty Woman situation.

Not that Emma is anybody's whore, but Regina has been laying it on a little thick with fancy meals and a hundred little comforts Emma wouldn't know where to buy, never mind actually owning them. But fluffy towels and nice things to put in her hair won't protect her now, so Emma quickly brushes her teeth and stomps downstairs to face the kid-shaped music.

Emma isn't sure what she expected, beyond Henry being happy about being reunited with the mountains of fancy crap Regina has bought him over the years, but the full-on tantrum is more than she knows how to deal with. Regina is already storming out of the kitchen, tears streaming down her face, leaving Emma feeling woozy and defenseless against Henry's anger.

"Do I have to stay here?" He asks, when the yelling and actual stomping of feet is done with. "Grandma and Gramps won't mind if I move in with them, right?"

"No way," Emma finds it's easier to treat him like a target from her old life: no compromises, no concessions, just take the hard line and get the job done. "The point of this is for you to spend time with both of your mothers."

"Why?" Henry asks, his face still flushed. "Two months ago you hated her. Now you're best friends?"

"We're…"

"Oh God, it's true!" Henry is off again, knocking his cereal bowl clear across the counter. "Nicholas has been teasing me about how you're some kind of dyke and—"

"Don't you dare use that word!" Emma is appalled, and she knows there's no way he learned that kind of talk on Regina's watch. Another line in the victory column for Emma's parenting record, then. "And what happens between me and Regina is none of your business, kid. That's grown-up stuff."

"It'll be grown-up stuff when you do something stupid when you get drunk, and then she'll rip your heart out and crush it, just like she did to Graham and all those other people, too," Henry is yelling again, his usually neat hair sticking up from where he's clutching at it.

"You love Regina," Emma reminds him. "And she loves you. Don't you like spending more time with her?"

"I do," Henry admits. "But this feels like when I have homework and instead of doing it, I just pretend I lost my book."

"What do you mean?" Emma demands.

"You and Mom. Something bad is gonna happen, something terrible. And you're just making it happen later, that's all."

"Did anyone ever tell you that you read too many stories?" Emma asks.

"Only for most of my life," Henry sasses right back. "I have to get to school, Grandma says I can't have any more late marks this term. Are you gonna drink today?"

"Henry…" Emma warns. "You know I'm trying really hard."

"Sorry," he says, blushing as he dashes over to give her a hug. Emma presses her cheek against the top of his head, as if affection now can make up for the lie she just told him. "I guess I don't really mind living here. At least I'll have some privacy."

"That's more like it," Emma encourages, guiding him towards the door.

* * *

"Hey!" Neal calls out as she strolls into the tackle store. "Hold on, lemme get down on one knee."

"You're a jerk," Emma sighs. "And thanks for going to my… to Regina, instead of me. You just can't stop causing trouble for me, can you?"

"To be fair, the trouble is almost never my idea," Neal counters.

"No, but you're easily led. Just a typical lost little boy," Emma points out. "Speaking of, when do you want to see Henry next week? I'm pretty open."

"Trying to make some alone time for the Two Mommies?" Neal teases, ducking as Emma grabs the nearest thing to hand—a fishing reel—and hurls it at his head.

"Don't push me, Neal," Emma finds her voice a little more pleading than she means it to be. "But yeah, if shiny new Daddy could maybe convince Henry that me and Regina being together isn't the new Axis of Evil, that might help."

"You want me to do your dirty work?" Neal asks. "Besides, what does that make you? Iran or North Korea?"

"It makes me someone who's tired of everyone telling her what to do. Including my 11 year-old kid. So now that I'm finally choosing something for myself, I'd like it to not end in tears and bloodshed, ya know?"

"And you think Regina is the best choice to avoid that? She nearly choked me to death just for mentioning her Mom's name."

"I'm sure you were asking for it," Emma says, her tone drier than the driest white wine.

"Yeah, probably," Neal shrugs. "But how about I take Henry for the weekend? I'm going fishing anyway, it's about time he learned. And if he gets bored and wants to come home, I'll call you?"

"You mean Friday through Sunday?" Emma tries not to leap at the offer, which is a hell of a lot better than she was expecting. Although Neal clearly loves Henry already, his own daddy issues hold him back on getting too involved with anything beyond being buddies. "So can he just come here after school, or…"

"Yeah," Neal agrees. "He finishes at three, right?"

"Right," Emma says, and despite her sore head and fragile mood, she rounds the counter to give Neal a brisk hug. "You're not completely useless, sometimes."

"Careful," Neal warns. "Or I'll think you're considering making me a Prince after all."

"Bite me," Emma says, smacking him upside the head. He's still laughing when she exists the store, the bells on the door harmonizing with him perfectly.

* * *

The Sheriff's Station has been quiet all week, until Friday lunchtime when Hook drops by to file a complaint about more trespassers on his ship.

"You do get that you're a pirate?" Emma asks, the sigh starting all the way at the tips of her toes. His appearance is denying her the grilled cheese that is rightfully hers, after all. "So instead of giving me paperwork, you could just, you know, scare them off?"

"I'm a reformed character," Hook reminds her, eyes twinkling with what he thinks is irresistible charm. "How am I supposed to find a nice young lady to settle down with if I keep getting on the wrong side of the law?"

"It never stopped you before," Regina chimes in, appearing in the doorway. Emma wishes she could stop herself reacting, but there's no mistaking the fluttering in her chest or the sickly somersault her stomach performs.

And no wonder, since Regina is clearly dressed to kill today, in a short leather skirt that's only a couple of inches longer than something Ruby might wear, knee-high boots that have molded to every curve, and a sweater so soft that Emma has to bunch her fingers into fists to stop her marching over there and peeling it right off Regina's body. It's pretty fucking annoying, how attractive Regina actually is.

"Madam Mayor," Hook says, with his regular leer. "Sorry, your Majesty. Just like old times, eh?"

"Regina is fine," she insists. "I actually came to see Miss Swan, but if you two are practicing your flirting—"

"We're not," Emma assures her. "It's just that Mr. Guyliner here is apparently scared of the neighborhood kids. Won't take me long to fill out his complaint."

"It wasn't important," Regina sighs, looking pointedly at her watch. "I thought, since you never stop eating, that you might want to join me for lunch."

"Well, look at that," Hook interrupts. "Domestic bliss, right before my very eyes. I didn't take you for the type, Regina."

"I'm not," Regina growls. "And since it was clearly a stupid idea…"

"Wait!" Emma yelps, shoving the form at Hook. "Fill this out, assuming you can read and write. If not, wait for David to get back and he'll do it. I am on lunch."

"There's really no need," Regina says, turning away. But Emma is too fast for her, grabbing her jacket, phone and gun in one smooth shift away from the desk.

"There's every need," Emma contradicts her, following Regina out to the parking lot. "Now, where did you have in mind?"

* * *

Emma should probably know better by now: she just isn't the kind of girl that someone takes to a fancy restaurant, to show off and be proud of. In fact, by the time they reach the police cruiser, Emma's fairly sure the only dish on the menu today is her, and Regina's impatient chewing of her own bottom lip suggests that the oral fixation is coming out to play.

"Should we just drive around?" Emma says. "If you want me to come home for a quickie, you can just call, you know."

"Home," Regina says, rolling the word around on her tongue as though she's saying it for the first time. "Do you think of it that way so soon?"

"Everywhere feels like home when nowhere does," Emma says, shrugging it off. "Home is where my clean underwear is, pretty much."

"So you want me to cook lunch?" Regina asks, restlessly scanning the road as Emma pulls out into lunchtime traffic.

"Wait, you actually meant lunch?" Emma almost knocks the stick out of gear in her confusion. "But you were giving me the look."

"Which look?" Regina asks, and she seems genuinely puzzled for once, way more convincing that her ducking and weaving of questions during the curse.

"The 'lean on the hood and spread 'em' look," Emma blurts, feeling a little sheepish.

"I see," Regina says, tone clipped to the point of downright frosty. "So, despite opening my home to you, I'm not entitled to want anything but sex from you?"

"That's not what I mean!" Emma hits the gas a little harder. "But yeah, I assumed that's what you were offering. Sex and I don't know, sharing the childcare stuff."

"Assumptions are dangerous things," Regina said. "I had, in fact, made a reservation at Patrice's. But since you clearly have a one-track mind, you can drop me off there and I'll eat alone. I assure you, it won't be the first time."

"I could eat!" Emma insists, scanning the relatively empty road before pulling a highly illegal turn outside Maurice's flower shop. "It's out by the docks, right?"

"Don't do me any favors," Regina says huffily.

"Come on," Emma says. "We'll be there in two minutes."

"We can't have sex on the table, if that's what you're thinking," Regina warns, looking at Emma with the suspicion she's been nursing since the night Emma rolled into town.

"No," Emma says, managing to avoid saying 'duh' instead. "But that's no reason we can't enjoy ourselves at lunch."

* * *

Patrice is a timid man, and Emma hasn't asked, but she's pretty sure he's the same brand of talking mouse that Gus was. Just a cooking mouse, instead of a mechanic mouse.

Christ, just thinking that has her itching for a cold glass of beer. Emma tries to think, sometimes, about how she would explain any of this to an outsider without getting locked up. So far she's come up with nothing but headaches and drinking that very real concern away.

Regina looks in her element again, seated at what is clearly the best table in the restaurant. While Emma's own family is engaged in outright war with Regina most of the time, the rest of the town's inhabitants mostly keep out of their former Queen's way. Emma's heard a bunch of reasons, from old loyalties to self-preservation, and somewhere long the line she realized that not everyone in town is invested in preserving some Charming happy endings, no matter what her parents might assume.

Thinking of them only makes her frown lines deepen, so Emma shakes it off before Regina can notice and prod at yet another bruise. Sometimes Emma feels bruised all over, offering herself up to Regina's skilled but sadistic hands, letting her ask where it hurts, but only so she knows to push a little harder in those places.

Or maybe Regina's just good in bed, and Emma's a mess, and who cares if it's fucked up when you come hard enough every time to knock yourself out?

"So," Emma says, before she can spiral any further into her own head. "We go on dates now?"

"We have to eat," Regina points out. "It's hardly unusual that we should do it together."

"People already know about us," Emma reminds her. "My parents get chatty when they're pissed. And doing this… well, we've got no hope of denying it. Neither does Henry."

"What's Henry got to do with this?" Regina pounces on the note of worry like a terrier on a bone.

"Nothing, it's just he said some kids at school were teasing him, and you know he's kind of sensitive—"

"Of course he's sensitive," Regina snarls. "I protected him from that kind of thing his whole life. Five minutes in your care and he's a target for bullies."

"Hey!" Emma protests, though she thought exactly the same thing. "I'm just saying, we need to be sure about what we are and aren't saying. Especially to the kid."

"Who's teasing him?" Regina demands, breezing right past the thread of sanity in the conversation. "I may not be Mayor anymore, but I have ways of making them sorry they ever spoke to my son."

"No magic," Emma reminds her. "Or Henry will get even madder."

"Not everything is about magic," Regina retorts. They're interrupted by an even more nervous waiter, who shakes the ice in the water glasses so hard they sound like maracas by the time he sets them down.

"Can I take your drinks order?" He asks, his voice a croaky little whisper. Must have been a frog, Emma thinks with a snort.

"Wine?" Regina asks, with the kind of nonchalance that doesn't come by accident. She expertly avoids Emma's gaze, staring blankly at the menu instead.

"Red," Emma replies, as smoothly as she can. "I'm leaning towards steak, so…"

"Very good," the waiter croaks, all but running back to the safety of the bar.

"I'm just going to have the one glass," Emma says, once the silence has become suffocating.

"Like I said," Regina says. "You don't have to explain yourself to me."

"Right, but I have to work this afternoon, is all," Emma pulls a piece of bread from the basket in the center and starts pulling it apart with shaking fingers. "And even though we don't have to worry about Henry this weekend-"

"I hope Baelfire won't be getting used to this level of access," Regina interrupts. "After all, having Henry back in our house is supposed to be about me reconnecting with my son."

"Right," Emma agrees. "But I'd also like to try some things without worrying you're gonna suffocate me with a pillow when you try to keep me quiet."

"How can you trust that I won't?" Regina asks. "Suffocate you, I mean. You're so very vulnerable in those moments."

She sips from her water then, running the tip of her tongue over her teeth as she rakes a long glance over Emma. Despite her jacket, shirt and t-shirt under it, Emma feels practically naked.

"Speaking of," Emma says, before she can back down. "Henry mentioned that he blames you for Graham's death. I guess in everything that's happened, I forgot to ask..."

"If I killed him?" Regina enquires, raising an eyebrow. "Well, I had no magic during the curse. And I don't think even I could fake a heart attack, do you?"

Emma bites her tongue, because the unreliable little voice in the back of her head is saying that Regina is lying her ass off right now, even if she's doing it without so much as blinking. Given that she's been wrong about almost everything for a really wrong time, though, Emma shouts the voice down and ignores it.

"Okay," Emma breathes, as the waiter reappears with two glasses of rich, plum-colored wine. "You're joining me, then?"

"I asked you if you wanted wine," Regina corrects. "So really, you're joining me."

"You know, Regina, it's actually okay to let something go once in a while. Not every conversation is a fight to see who'll win," Emma points out.

Regina treats her to a glare that states she believes exactly the opposite.

"Fine," Emma sighs. "Let's order some food."

* * *

"So," Emma asks, feeling like a reporter who's been given one shot to land an exclusive. Regina has relaxed with their second glass of wine, and while Regina has opted for some kind of fancy salad, Emma is taking another bite of her melt-in-the-mouth steak. "How badly did you hate me?"

"Are you going to specify a point?" Regina asks. "Because you may have noticed, my annoyance with you has varied since your arrival."

"When I broke your curse," Emma nudges. "I know, I know. You're gonna say it saved Henry and it was worth it. But come on. You're easily the most spiteful person I've ever met."

If the insult wounds Regina, she doesn't show it. Instead she lowers her fork back to the plate and rests her chin on immaculate fingers to consider.

"I don't think I hated you, for that," she admits after a long moment. "I was so terrified you would take Henry, that I'd lose him like I've lost everyone else... I think by the time it finally broke, I was relieved. It felt almost good to tell the truth after lying for so long."

"Seriously?" Emma is aware of the mouthful of steak, frozen halfway to her mouth. "So, you're what? Grateful?"

"I wouldn't go that far," Regina warns. "Now, you tell me something."

"Like what?" Emma snorts, wondering if any other date in the history of the world has included conversation this completely weird. Well, nearly as weird as considering anything with Regina a date. Emma hasn't entirely ruled out getting some action before returning to the station, and to that end, she kicks one of her ankle boots off beneath the table, sliding her foot carefully towards Regina's calves.

"Why did you give up Henry?" Regina demands, and there's a glint in her eyes that makes her look like she could take down whatever Emma's steak used to be with one bite. It halts Emma's lame attempt at footsie in a split-second. "The real reason, I mean. Not the sanitized 'best chance' routine you gave him."

"That's a little deep for lunch, isn't it?" Emma deflects, the familiar prickle of sweat at the base of her spine appearing at the very mention of the topic. She's almost gotten used to it, after a year of Henry's questions and a couple of month's of Neal asking the same things. But from Regina the question is a skewer: straight to the heart of everything Emma has carefully not been saying.

"You started this by showing up drunk and ready to off yourself in my kitchen," Regina reminds her. "Shallow waters are quite far behind us now."

"I don't think I want to talk about it," Emma says, stumbling over the words. "It's personal, you know?"

"I do," Regina agrees. "Confirming once again that while we're happy to bare our skin, perhaps it was a mistake to think we might bare our souls, too."

"Hey, that's not fair," Emma challenges, draining her glass and signaling for a refill. "Nobody said anything about all that... emotional stuff. I mean, what next? You're gonna try and make me into some kind of true love?"

Regina stiffens at that, almost choking on the baby plum tomato she just speared and popped into her mouth.

"What a delightful offer," she remarks. "Thank the Gods I've already had mine. For which you, in case you were wondering, would be no substitute."

"Nice," Emma sasses, and if it stings a little, well: that's just the cost of doing business. She'd rather be around bitchy, unfeeling Regina than the smothering kindness of everyone else. "You know, instead of wasting time on lunch, I could be getting back to the station."

"Still so childish," Regina sighs. "The reason I've persisted with this... thing is that you at least seemed up for the challenge. Are you really going to run off crying every time it gets a little snippy?"

"Do you see me running?"

"Well, it is what you do best. I assume you're only ever a few minutes from hitting the road. Still, I'm going to the washroom. I expect you'll be gone when I get back?" Regina stands, not waiting for an answer.

Emma slams her cutlery down on the table, and yanks the stupid napkin from her lap to throw it down right on the plate. Damn straight she's going to be gone before Regina gets back. She's going right back to that insane mansion on the hill and she's going to take every last possession from it, before telling Kathryn she will be keeping the apartment after all.

That's absolutely the plan, except it takes a moment to dig out a few bills and throw those down on the table. The universe hates her, Emma's sure of it, because her excellent sense of timing has her walking past the ladies' room just as Regina is on her way out.

It's the smirk that does it. The condescending quirk of lips that says 'I told you so', which are Emma's four least-favorite words, right after 'The stick says positive' and 'finds the defendant guilty'.

"But the check-" Regina has the presence of mind to blurt as Emma lunges at her. It only takes a shove and a sharp jerk of Regina's arm to have her facing the wall, pinned in position like any other perp Emma's chased down. She pulls Regina's arm up behind her back, and although there's a risk she'll lash out like a wild animal caught in a trap, Emma's fairly sure she can keep Regina under control for now.

"Unhand me," Regina bites out the words, and she's all Queen in that moment, dark and dangerous and maybe a little unhinged. "After all, Sheriff," she tries next, all honey and light. "I was planning on having you for dessert."

Emma has to tip her hat to the survival instinct at work there, wondering for a sickening second if this is how Regina also managed the grandfather Emma never met; the man Regina killed for making her his wife.

"Two choices," Emma grunts, pushing Regina harder against the wall, maybe hard enough to bruise one perfect cheekbone. "You come quietly now, and do as you're told. Or I march you back through the restaurant and let everyone think you've been misbehaving again. How long before Henry hears, do you think?"

"You wouldn't," Regina gasps, but Emma yanks the chain of the cuffs in emphasis. "I thought this nonsense would stop now that we're living together..."

"Oh, Regina," Emma sighs. "Where's the fun in that?"

* * *

Every option is open to her on this cool and sunny afternoon, but Emma ignores the turning for Regina's house-for home-or the apartment whose keys are still on her keychain.

"Where are you taking me?" Regina demands. Emma hasn't bound her in any way, but she's put Regina in the back where she can't open the doors from the inside, at least not by conventional methods.

"You and I need to have another little talk," Emma reminds her. "And I think it's better if we do that away from any distractions, don't you?" There's a half-bottle of Jack on the passenger seat, and Emma grips the steering wheel a little harder to stop herself taking a swig as she navigates the twisting road out of Storybrooke. "Remind me, what happens to you when you cross the town line?"

"I die?" Regina ventures, but she's too turned on by Emma roughing her up at the restaurant to lie convincingly.

"No, you don't," Emma sighs. "Just for that, I'm putting some of my music on."

"Is it far, at least?" Regina asks.

"Not really," Emma admits. "But you might as well get comfortable."

Regina kicks off her heels with a weary sigh, and roots around in her purse for one of the paperbacks she seems to carry with her everywhere. Emma cranks up Nirvana until the frame of the car vibrates, and floors the gas pedal again.

The sight of the roadside diner makes Emma's breath catch in her throat all over again, and she slows the car just in time to pull into one of the empty parking spots.

"Out," she barks at Regina, who frowns as she slips her shoes back on and rearranges her purse. "Now!" Emma presses, stepping out and surveying the gray skies above them. No rain, yet, and with every passing second Emma realizes she has no idea what in the hell she's doing. They could be back in Regina's oversized, overly comfortable bed right now, instead of a few hundred yards from the place that Emma first entered this world.

It feels so much more plausible, now that she's heard the story from her parents and Marco, instead of spineless, lying August. Emma won't voice the thought, but she can't be the only one to suspect that even a fresh start as a kid isn't going to save August from himself. Maybe people can't change, but starting over without any kind of real consequences doesn't exactly seem like the learning curve that Emma's been on for the past couple of decades. Does someone have that planned for her, when this all finally calms down? Will that creepy nun-fairy wave a wand and turn Emma back into a crying baby, this time not shoved in a wardrobe, or abandoned by a puppet, or sold down the river by Rumpelstiltskin's son?

Emma wonders what that kind of person might turn out to be, and hugs herself protectively at the thought of being erased so easily. For all she's lived through, for all the days and nights she wishes were physical things in order for her to burn them down to ash, she can't imagine giving up now.

But maybe, but maybe...

Wouldn't it be nice to not feel this emptiness in her chest all the time? Wouldn't it be great to wake up in the morning without another pounding headache and a craving for things much stronger than coffee or OJ? To remember only days when loving parents cared for her and read her stories, instead of the brutes who taught her to steal for them and only told her stories that they wanted her to learn and repeat for the well-meaning social workers that let Emma stay as a meal ticket?

There's only one person who might feel the same as Emma about all this, and she's stamping her feet on the worn tarmac on the other side of the car.

"Regina?" Emma asks, already regretting it. "If someone could do a spell on you right now, send you back to being a baby... would you let them?"

"It wouldn't change anything," Regina says after an endless moment. "My mother would still have been without her heart. Rumpel would still have me earmarked to cast his curse; he would still find ways to break me, to get me to a dark enough place."

"Right," Emma nods. "I can see that."

"You want that?" Regina asks in return. "That's cowardly, even for you."

"I didn't say I wanted that," Emma snaps. "But with everything that happened to August, well... I wondered. You can't say you've never wondered about a fresh start."

"I had mine," Regina reminds her. "They're not all they're cracked up to be. Now, are we here for yet more greasy food? Because Granny's would have been a lot quicker, and at least I know she cleans the place occasionally."

"We're not here for food," Emma tells her, turning towards the woods and the small gap that signals the beginnings of a rough path. "This way."

* * *

Regina curses up a storm at having to pick her way through the muddy ground in three-inch heels, but Emma is short on both sympathy and patience.

"So," Emma announces. "This is it."

Regina turns in a slow circle, taking in the barren clearing, populated only by a few trees, some pathetic shrubs and the odd piece of litter that careless hikers have left behind.

"You'd better be about to perform some magic," Regina warns. "Because right now all I see is some scrubland."

"This is where they sent me," Emma says, pausing to take a lengthy swallow from her bottle. "This tree. August showed me and I laughed in his face."

"Really?" Regina actually looks intrigued. "That damn fairy always was an amateur. A simple warding spell would have made sure you were dropped somewhere safe, like near a hospital."

"Yeah, she found more than one way to screw me over," Emma says, kicking at the dirt. "You want some?" She asks, out of some dormant sense of politeness. Regina shakes her head.

"One of us is going to need to be sober enough to drive back," Regina replies. "And you were over the limit even before you opened that."

"Then why get in the car with me?" Emma demands, stepping into Regina's space and catching her off-guard for once. It takes no more than a gentle push to have Regina backing up against the tree. "I'm beginning to think you like the danger." Emma pats her holstered gun to make the point, and she's satisfied to see Regina swallow hard at the sight.

"Do you remember it?" Regina whispers, looking down at her feet, at the earth where Emma first met this world.

"Nah," Emma says, all cavalier. "I was only just born, remember? I didn't know that Mary Margaret was supposed to... anyway. That would have made you even more pissed, right? If the one person you wanted to curse escaped it?"

"Probably," Regina admits. "Although I'm not sure there was anywhere angrier to go, then."

"How hurt do you have to be," Emma wonders aloud. "To do something like that, I mean?"

Regina glares at her, bottom lip protruding slightly as she shoves her hands into the pockets of her trenchcoat. Emma stares a moment in wonder, wondering how someone who's lived so long can still be so young.

"Getting revenge felt good?" Emma presses. "I mean, even after the curse broke. My parents sent away a princess and all they got back was me."

"What do you mean?" Regina asks.

"Well, look at me, Regina," Emma says. "I ain't no princess, that's for damn sure. How do you think Mary Margaret felt when she remembered who I really was, on top of all the crappy stuff I told her about my life here?"

"I imagine it broke her heart," Regina answers, and she gets the smirk under control just before Emma has to slap it away. "It would break mine, if you took Henry away and then twenty years later I found out he'd had a terrible life."

"I know," Emma admits.

"Of course you do," Regina says, reverting to that monotone she seems to reserve for her deepest hurt. "After all, it's why you stayed. You gave up your freedom, your ignorance, your sense that you did the right thing... all to protect Henry from me."

Emma takes another pull from the bottle. She isn't restraining Regina in any way, and she could walk away if she wants.

"You weren't that bad," Emma tells her. "I mean, you know that. I still don't really know why I stayed."

"For the same noble reason you gave him up, no doubt," Regina suggests.

"Not gonna let it drop, are you?" Emma complains. "Fine. I'll tell you."

She steps away then, sitting down heavily on a fallen log. For this she needs a little distance, and a lot more to drink. Her jeans scratch against the rough bark and Emma digs the heels of her boots into the soft earth as she considers how much of herself to give up this time. It's all she's done, since the curse broke. Give and compromise, sacrifice and change. Pretending all along that she's just a fairytale character, too.

"You want to know how crappy my life was back then?" Emma asks. "I was _relieved_ when I worked out I'd give birth just before my sentence was up. I was relieved… because at least in prison the state would pay for me to actually get the medical care I needed. I wouldn't have been able to do that outside. Henry would have been born in some bus station washroom, probably."

"What a wonderful image," Regina says, but it's not as vicious as it might be. "I wondered why you served the full term on a first offense, when Sidney got the records. Is it because-"

"Yeah," Emma cuts her off. "I was a good girl, at first. Until the guard pulled me aside one day and told me I was up for early release. I, uh, panicked."

"You were up for parole?" Regina muses. "You sound more and more like a Johnny Cash song."

"Funny," Emma deadpans. "Anyway, I couldn't let them turn me out of there, not when I was only seven months gone. So I stabbed a girl in our work detail."

"You stabbed someone?" Regina asks, unable to hide her shock.

"In the hand. With a really blunt screwdriver," Emma admits, wincing at the thought. "Honestly, it was more one big bruise than anything. But it got me down to serve out my whole time, and so Henry was born in a hospital."

"You had no option?" Regina pushes again. "Surely since you were due out so soon, there was a discussion..."

"I didn't want him," Emma admits, finally. "Not just because I wanted him to have great stuff, although I did. But I'd spent my whole life broke, unwanted and living in crappy places. Seeing this baby just hit home that I'd be tying myself down to at least eighteen more years of that."

"You wanted better for yourself, too," Regina rephrases for her.

"I had a hard life," Emma says. "I didn't want it to be even harder, just because I got knocked up by some asshole who ran out on me. And I didn't want to become like my worst foster mothers, treating a kid like an unwanted pet somebody dumped on them."

"And you beat yourself up about that?"

"All the time," Emma admits. "I should have wanted him enough, right? To make it work."

"I'm glad you didn't," Regina says in an unusually small voice, and it feels like the most honest thing that's ever happened between them.

"So, now you know," Emma says, draining the last of the bottle and regretting it when she attempts standing.

"Keys," Regina demands.

"Get 'em yourself," Emma dares her. They're wedged pretty painfully against her hipbone right now, in the impossibly tight pocket of her jeans.

"Oh, for God's sake," Regina huffs, snatching at Emma's jacket and pulling her close. "Is this really what I've taken on? An overgrown child with no impulse control and no-"

Emma shuts her up with a kiss, because just like most other days, she's already had it up to here with Regina's bitchy remarks.

This wasn't the plan, this sudden grabbing at each other, using a hollowed out tree for leverage as they fumble with zippers and buttons like their fingers have forgotten how to work, but Emma doesn't care.

It doesn't matter that there's half a chance some hikers will stumble across them, or that they're not really that far from the road, and this isn't the kind of woodland that a person can really hide in. Emma, softened by the wine and whisky, is trembling with the need to touch. She wants soft skin beneath her hands that remain rough, no matter how much handcream Mary Margaret offers her. She wants to trace old scars, find new blemishes, and make that light olive skin blanch and redden as she squeezes and slaps.

"So," Emma mutters, pulling Regina against her, with a twist to make Regina face the tree instead of her. "You might want to grab on to something."

"So sure of yourself," Regina challenges, but she slips a hand behind Emma's neck anyway.

"Nuh uh," Emma corrects. "I plan on bending you over and..."

Regina snorts at the idea, but a moment later she's leaning forward, placing her palms flat on the tree trunk, sweater already pushed up by Emma's questing hands, and the skirt she'd worn to lunch little more than a broad belt around her waist. Emma's jeans are undone and her shirt is already dumped in the dirt and leaves, mostly protected by her leather jacket. The weather is about as pleasant as it gets in Maine - bright and just warm enough to make Emma feel like she's just been skinny-dipping in a lake.

"You've been on edge since I slammed you in the restaurant, haven't you?" Emma asks. Regina shakes her head, because defiance just comes naturally to her.

"Before," Regina admits. "Why do you think I wasted a lunch like that on your unrefined palate?"

"So it was a booty call," Emma states, not expecting any argument now. She smacks Regina's ass to express the beginnings of her displeasure. "You think you can use me."

"Just like you're using me," Regina groans through gritted teeth as a few more smacks rain down. She wriggles as soon as Emma stops, already seeking more. "You only moved in because you want to do whatever you want without being nagged."

"Isn't that what everyone wants?" Emma asks, yanking Regina's whisper of a thong down over her thighs. An experimental slip of one fingertip confirms Regina is already soaked. "Except you, because clearly all you want right now is me."

"You always flatter yourself," Regina accuses. "Not bad for someone whose self-confidence crumbles at one pointed remark."

Emma digs her short nails into each of Regina's thighs then, and rakes upwards for the howl of pain and satisfaction she was hoping for.

"Seem like I'm crumbling to you?" Emma asks, but she's in motion again before waiting for an answer. Running her fingers over the wetness between Regina's thighs, she builds the pressure of each stroke until her fingers are resting on Regina's clit, already hard and straining for Emma's touch.

"You don't deserve what I'm about to give you," Emma tells her, before starting to rub in the hard, fast circles that Regina can't seem to brace herself against. It doesn't take more than a few minutes, Emma never relenting and Regina gasping her way to her first climax with the occasional annoyed curse word thrown in for good measure.

Not Emma allows for anything like recovery time. Regina's still twitching, her knees bent and her shoulders slumped, only held up by her grip on the tree and Emma's hand on her hip. At this rate, Emma's going to be holding her up all by herself, and she sinks to her knees now that Regina is too buzzed to think of it as submission.

Taking a firm grip of Regina's ass, Emma pushes her towards the tree, pleased when Regina does have the presence of mind to brace. That's enough for Emma to start licking in earnest, spreading the increased wetness around with the tip and then the flat of her tongue, lashing one moment and softly massaging the next. The constant changing keeps pushing surprised sobs from Regina's throat, and Emma recognizes that as yet another thing she could get addicted to, or the causing it at least.

She stops, when Regina is teetering on the edge (and on the edge of falling), waiting a long moment before replacing her tongue with three fingers, and the satisfied moan from Regina says that's exactly what she needed. Thrusting hard, Emma slips her right hand beneath her own panties, keeping pace with Regina as Emma rubs her own clit, and somewhere in the noise of them both climaxing there are words Emma doesn't believe she's hearing.

"Well," she gasps, as Regina falls back onto her. They're a mess already, and it's going to take more than a regular wash to get this much dirt out of denim. "I might not be worth loving, Regina. But I'm sure as hell worth fucking, right?"

Regina rolls off her then, and grabs Emma by the hair. It's so needlessly desperate that Emma is stunned into silence.

"I didn't say that," Regina growls. "I didn't say you weren't worth loving. That's the worst... I would never say that."

"You'll imply it a whole fucking lot," Emma reminds her, finding her voice again. "You damn sure seem to get off on making me feel that way."

"I'm the one who's not capable of loving again," Regina spits. "Me. The damage is mine. That has nothing to do with your worthiness. Other than the fact that seeking out someone so broken means you might not be capable either."

"I'm not," Emma states, quite seriously.

"Well, then," Regina says. "Why don't we get back to that surprisingly spacious Sheriff's car, and stick to what we are capable of?"

"Now you're talking."

* * *

The drive back must actually be boring without Emma's company, and Regina seems to get irritated every time she checks the rear view mirror to make sure Emma is still breathing. Of course, Emma could tell her she's wide awake now and sit up front to make small talk, but frankly she's not in the mood. Something about a bunch of orgasms, all that drinking and a sneaky few pills from Regina's purse has left her content to flop out on the backseat; let Regina do the work for once.

A few months ago no one would have thought twice about the Mayor driving the Sheriff's car, but Emma's glad of the onrushing twilight and the relatively empty streets as Regina navigates her way home through Storybrooke. This way nobody's going to see Emma in the backseat and start a kidnapping rumor, anyway.

Parking outside her own house isn't exactly discreet, but Regina is apparently beyond caring. Emma thinks this must be what the old Evil Queen was like, all 'fuck you' before anyone even asked. Emma would be lying if she didn't say the idea turns her on all over again, but her body protests the fresh surge of arousal.

That, Emma assumes, is why Regina shakes out a little handful of pills before the less-than-easy task of yanking Emma out of the backseat. Either Regina expects the moving to hurt, or she's trying to tamp down the magic urge again; but still Emma's the only one with a problem, apparently.

In shuffling steps, Regina drags Emma up the path and into the safety of the foyer and Emma does actually try to help despite the fact that her legs really don't want to. Regina lets Emma slump to the floor with a drunken mumble as she gets ready to take her upstairs, and Emma tries to ask why Regina isn't just using magic.

It's just as well she doesn't, in the end, because a moment later Henry comes running through the front door, catching up to them a few steps up and offering what little strength his boyish frame has to get Emma to the guest room she's taken over.

"You let her get this way?" Henry says, when Emma is vaguely comfortable on her bed and he's retreated to the hall alongside Regina. They must assume she's a lost cause for the night, because neither bothers to close the door, so Emma can hear every word.

"Miss Swan is a grown adult," Regina reminds him. "I don't _let_ her do anything." Her back muscles are trying their hardest to spasm, but the Vicodin is doing its job at last. "She'll be fine, Henry. I wouldn't let her stay here if she was any risk to you."

"She's not fine!" Henry explodes, his face reddening again. "And you trying to explain that you're teaming up as 'co-parents' was a load of crap, too. Emma told me you're together."

"I know she did," Regina says, and Emma doesn't need x-ray vision to know exactly which frown accompanies it. She shuffles a little, yanking her shirt off and pulling the comforter over her. She smells like dirt and there are probably, maybe some leaves in her hair, but Regina clearly wasn't doing that much damage control with Henry there to witness. "I wanted to tell you... nicer. In a better way."

"Well, that must mean you care about her," Henry carries on, and Emma's own nose wrinkles at the thought. She just hopes Regina has a better poker face.

"I want her to be okay, for you," Regina insists. "You've told me many times that you need Emma in your life. I'm trying to give you what you want."

"Then help her," Henry pleads. "I don't like this, and it's scary, Mom. Why is she so sad if she got her family back? She got me back, and now she has you. She shouldn't be so sad."

Well, that succeeds in making Emma feel like total crap.

"Henry," Regina says firmly, and Emma hears the creak of the floorboards as Regina kneels. "I'm going to tell you something I've learned, and I hope you never have to find out for yourself, okay? Sometimes life does things to us that we can't get over with a new comic book and a shower. You're a smart boy, and I love that about you. I love that so much..."

"Mom?"

"Emma needs us to help her in the way she decides," Regina resumes. "Forcing her to do things for other people only makes it worse. She doesn't need the pressure of giving everyone else their happy ending. So I want you to think about that, in that smart brain of yours, and give Emma some time."

"You're sure?" Henry asks, because a little part of the kid has to be remembering the lies and the stories about the Evil Queen. But what the kid doesn't realize is that even if it is a scam, all the good guys fall for one. Thinking about that stops Emma having to wonder about the kindness in Regina's words, or the fact that for the first time in Emma's life, someone actually understands.

"I'm sure," Regina says. "Now, you're supposed to be with Baelfire tonight. Why did you come home?"

"Oh, I need my waders for the morning," Henry says. "Dad went to the store, so he'll pick me up on the way back."

"Then let's get your waders, and we'll have a cookie and some milk while we wait for him, okay?" Regina suggests, and Emma's glad that Henry doesn't fob her off with a lame excuse this time. Maybe Emma being in such a state is making Regina look better, even if the kid hasn't noticed that Regina's every bit as tired as Emma is.

Emma's eyes are slipping closed at last, sleep finally too seductive to resist, but she hears Henry's parting shot just fine.

"Hey Mom?"

"Yes Henry?"

"How come there are twigs stuck to your sweater?"

* * *

**As ever, your reviews are a frosty glass of Diet Coke after a day in the desert. Sorry this took longer, the last four chapters took some serious re-jigging. But here we are in the final stretch, I hope you're all ready for the last three chapters and The Ending (but can it be a happy one?)**


	10. Chapter 10

Emma shows up for morning coffee with Ruby on Sunday, when most of the town is attending church or some kind of fairytale equivalent in the woods; a time when Emma is usually amongst the citizens sleeping off a hangover at home.

This morning, though, her head is surprisingly clear. Even though it means a hundred competing worries can throw themselves around in there, on the surface at least, Emma feels calm.

Something about Henry's plea to Regina has knocked a kind of sense into Emma, and though the feeling is about as secure as ice on a pond in early April, she's reluctantly decided to try something closer to sobriety for a while.

After all, if the Evil Freakin' Queen can climb down from her high horse to offer some subtle help, all to make their kid happy, then Emma figures she has to at least try to get back to the person she was a year ago, when Snow White was just a cartoon and Emma's wildchild drinking binges were something she'd allegedly grown out of.

"Here's your coffee," Ruby says with a smile. "Sure you won't have cocoa?"

"It just makes me sleepy," Emma admits. "And I've got a long ass day ahead of me."

"Regina got you working a little overtime?" Ruby asks, one eyebrow raised. Of everyone, she's been the most understanding, and the most capable of standing up to Regina without straight-up antagonizing her.

Sometimes Emma thinks about suggesting her parents use Ruby more in trying to restructure the town, because the girl is a lot smarter than anyone gives her credit for, but showing any kind of engagement only leads to more headaches and Snow signing Emma up for all kinds of voluntary crap she has no time for. Their relationship is strained enough these days without Emma shirking her princess duties, too.

"Granny's just mixing the pancake batter; church gets out soon," Ruby explains, taking the stool next to Emma's and swinging her long legs lazily.

"Not for me," Emma demurs. "Regina made breakfast, before Henry took her hiking, so..."

"I had her pegged for the granola and grapefruit type," Ruby muses. "She almost never orders the food in here, didn't even when we were cursed."

"Well, it turns out she makes some insanely good French toast," Emma confides. "And she did something funky with the coffee, too. It tasted kinda like nuts. But still like coffee? It was pretty awesome."

"Guess that solves the mystery of why you moved into the big mansion, huh?" Ruby teases, splaying her fingers out on her thighs beneath her still spotless apron. Emma knows in a few hours it'll be splashed with grease and coffee and sticky fingerprints from kids, like every other day. For now though, the cotton is reassuringly clean and starched, almost like new.

"I don't want to talk about Regina," Emma reminds her friend. "Why don't you tell me what you've been doing while I've been getting cats out of trees, hmm?"

"Actually, I do have a little bit of gossip," Ruby admits, leaning in and treating Emma to a dazzling smile. "Wait 'til you hear about Belle..."

* * *

"Did you walk here?" Ruby asks, as Emma drips all over the diner floor. While Emma has water running off her blue leather jacket, thin gray sweater and black jeans, Ruby is the very picture of dryness in her off-the-shoulder black sweater and skin-tight red pants. How she does a whole shift in her towering wedges is beyond Emma, whose feet object even to the gentle heel of the boots she's so used to wearing for tramping around on her Sheriff patrols.

"No, Rubes, I just opened my sunroof for shits and giggles," Emma snarks, glad to be indoors at last. "Of course I walked. It wasn't pouring when I left."

"Someone's grumpy," Ruby scolds, gesturing around the empty diner for Emma to pick a seat. "Sit down, I'll bring you a dry sweater, at least."

Emma waits impatiently for something not-soaked in rain, but Ruby doesn't take long at all. When she's commandeered the ladies room and changed, Emma joins Ruby at the counter for what's now become a regular friend date over the past few weeks.

"Hangover?" Ruby asks as Emma pinches the bridge of her nose.

"Nah," Emma says, surprised she's not lying. "Just the regular kind of headache."

"Well, you know what the cure for that is," Ruby sing-songs, pouring them both black coffee from a steaming pot. "Or has the lesbian bed death already set in?"

"It's been two months!" Emma protests. "And you really need to stop clicking on random internet articles, it never ends well for me."

"I was trying to-oh boy-Snow was asking me all these questions, so I've been trying to clue her in," Ruby starts to explain, but she stumbles to a halt at Emma's undoubtedly horrified expression. "Well, they're trying to understand. I think they'd like to see more of you. And Henry."

"If you're gonna play messenger for my parents-" Emma starts to warn.

"I'm only suggesting it as your friend," Ruby assures her. "You want some aspirin for your head?"

"Just a glass of water," Emma says. "I'm probably dehydrated or something."

Ruby gets up to fetch the pitcher, freshly filled with ice and lemon floating in it, and while her back is turned Emma dry-swallows a couple of Regina's little helpers. They haven't exactly discussed frequent sharing, but much as the pills take the edge off Regina's urge to incinerate things when she's cranky, so they also reduce Emma's need to go beyond that second bottle of beer or glass of wine every night. It's... something.

"Here you go," Ruby says. "You know, we're having a potluck here tonight. Your parents are coming, so if Henry wanted to-"

"Fine," Emma sighs. "But in the meantime let's talk about something else, please?"

"I think we should talk about your lesbian bed non-death," Ruby decides, practically bouncing with glee. "Tell me Regina's as good as I think she is...?"

"A lady never tells," Emma cuts her off.

"Oh honey," Ruby says, shaking her head. "You might be a princess. Hell, you might be a lot of things. But you're really not a lady, and we both know it."

"I thought Regina was your mortal enemy?" Emma deflects.

"Nope. She's Snow's mortal enemy. I'm just, you know, in her pack," Ruby explains. "And if you could see how red you are right now..."

"It's not that kind of thing, okay?" Emma snaps. "We're not gonna braid each other's hair and trade gossip about my girlfriend. Because she's not my girlfriend. It's just... you know. We're trying to both raise Henry."

"You could do that in separate houses," Ruby points out, and it's far from unreasonable. "Lots of parents do, especially in this world. And I don't know exactly who you two think you're fooling, but the fact that you feel something for the Evil Queen? Is written all over your pretty face, Ems."

"That is not possible," Emma assures her, standing to leave. "Thanks for the sweater, I'll bring it back later, okay?"

"Emma-"

"Later," Emma grunts, and heads out of the diner's front door.

* * *

Inviting Regina is an accident, and probably a mistake, but Emma stands by it. Henry is actually pretty crappy about keeping secrets anyway, so even if Regina hadn't overheard the plans, the kid would have blabbed before long.

"There's no time to make lasagna," Regina hedges when Emma fumbles the invitation news to include Regina.

"I'm saying this in the hope you don't bite my head off," Emma ventures, because she's already in enough trouble one way or another. "But could you maybe make something else? We've had it twice this week already."

"It's Henry's favorite," Regina counters.

"I like all your food," Henry chimes in, a little too urgently. "I mean, except for that thing with the green beans. That's pretty gross."

And in that moment the cloying, suffocating domesticity of it hits Emma in the face, and it's six-to-five and pick 'em whether she yaks her solitary cup of coffee all over Regina's spotless kitchen floor.

"I should change," Emma manages to say, because the last of the rain soaked her on the way back too. She can feel her chest tighten, every breath a little harder than the last until the encroaching blackness comes in at the edges of her vision. Regina watches her carefully, assessing whatever signs of panic Emma is currently showing, and nods.

"Henry, come help me pick something. Emma's going to have a soak in the tub," Regina takes over, smooth and controlling as ever.

Emma bolts for the stairs, and doesn't look back.

She's not sure why Regina made the suggestion, but that huge tub does sound kind of appealing. Emma's peeling her damp things off when she spots the bottle amongst all the frou-frou toiletries that Regina hoards like someone from one of those horrible reality shows.

A scalding hot bubble bath and a bottle of Jack? That makes dinner with half the town a way more appealing prospect.

* * *

"Did it help?" Regina asks an hour later, as Emma pads contentedly into the bedroom, wrapped in Regina's black silk robe.

"Mmm," Emma confirms. "Just enough to take the edge off, though."

"You don't have to justify it to me," Regina says. "Although I do wonder what got that deer in the headlights look on your face."

"It was just a bit... much?" Emma admits with a weary sigh, slumping into the pretty armchair by the window where Regina sometimes fusses with some needlework or reading a novel before retreating to bed for the night, even if Emma is already in bed and impatiently waiting. "Arguing about dishes, about what we eat _every_ night, and I realized we've really fallen into something here. It's working, I think?"

"So naturally," Regina mocks, crossing the room in casual strides, the skirt of her green dress parting over her thigh as she moves. "You saw something not broken and immediately attempted to blow it up?"

"It's kind of what I do," Emma confesses. "But a bath and a stiff drink aren't the most destructive things, are they?"

"No," Regina agrees, leaning over Emma in her chair. "You should know by now you don't have to be scared, Emma. Or are you still scared of me?" She demands, grabbing Emma's chin in a grip that's rough enough to pinch.

"I've never been scared of you, lady," Emma sasses, all challenge and bluster, because a part of her has been terrified for a really long time now.

"Of course not," Regina replies, releasing Emma's chin and then folding herself onto Emma's lap. "I'm really very easy to keep sweet, aren't I?"

"Yeah, right," Emma snorts, but Regina's ass is wiggling very pleasantly in Emma's lap, and it's just force of habit that has Emma sliding her hands along Regina's thighs, bare beneath the smart green dress. "Looks like someone came up here to get a little brunch."

"I came up to make sure you hadn't drowned yourself," Regina corrects, arching her neck in that way that's practically an order for Emma to kiss it. Occasionally, Emma muses, orders are worth following, especially when she feels Regina's pulse jump under her lips, the subtle scent of her perfume tickling Emma's nose.

"Shame we need to get ready and go," Emma grumbles after a few minutes. They're just a few touches from being too heated to stop, and she can't blow off dinner after telling Ruby they'd go.

"Sure?" Regina murmurs, giving her best shot at distracting Emma into canceling.

"'Fraid so," Emma says, with a lot of effort, given the way Regina's cupping her breasts in that possessive way that she has. "But I'm totally taking a rain check for later tonight."

* * *

The diner is already packed when Emma leads her little band through the door, a tray of tacos wedged under her arm. Regina had been horrified at first, but substituting a few of Emma's less-than-organic ingredients for fresh vegetables had appeased Regina enough to let it be their offering for the pot luck.

Henry rushes straight to his grandparents, offering up easy hugs as David ruffles his hair and the chatter immediately turns to school and the softball league that some parents have started on Saturday mornings. Emma watches her parents' faces follow animatedly along with his chatter, and the familiar pang of all she missed resonates in her chest.

Regina lays a hand on her shoulder then, because while she might suck at a lot of things, she sure as hell knows someone in pain when she sees it.

"Henry seems happy," Regina offers as a quiet reminder. It's all it takes to push Emma out of her sudden melancholy. For all the journey in getting here has been unbearably long and hard, there's a lot of good that came out of it in the end.

"Lemme guess," Ruby says, sliding into view. "Lasagna?"

"Actually," Emma jumps in to avoid any sniping. "Regina let me cook this time."

"Well, at least the CDC can find Storybrooke now I guess," Ruby teases, taking the casserole dish from Emma and laying it out on the table beside an assortment of other foods, some Emma's still too squeamish to ask much about.

"Emma!" Her father calls out, and honestly it might just be best to rip the band-aid off.

"David," she says, and it's warmer than she thought it might be. "Mary Margaret. Thanks for inviting us." Mary Margaret's eyes flicker to Regina for a moment, and there's no mistaking the flare of disapproval. "Ruby said the invite was for all of us, anyway."

"It was," David insists. "We wanted to talk to you about that."

"I'll go get drinks," Regina says, and it's officially the most helpful she's ever been.

"No, stay," Mary Margaret insists. "This concerns you, too. Whether I like it or not, apparently."

"What we're trying to say," David presses on. "Is that we want to try to make a more lasting peace. Henry's been telling us every week how much he's enjoying living with both of you, and although we might have had other hopes for you-"

"We're not going to stand in your way," Mary Margaret interrupts. "If nothing else, I've already cost you enough happiness in this life, Regina."

Regina looks stunned at the admission, but her eyes soon narrow again in suspicion, her hands wedged deep in her pockets, no doubt to prevent any accidental magical strangulation.

"And Emma," David continues. "I guess we gave up the right to disapprove of your choices when we put you in that wardrobe. Ultimately, we'd rather have a life with Regina in it, than any kind of life that doesn't have you."

Emma came so ready for confrontation that her nerves are still singing with the tension of it, so her parents' abrupt about-turn hits her like a punch to the gut. Maybe it's the freakout earlier, or the lingering effects of the Jack in her system, but she doesn't have a single defense left.

She cries, and God, it isn't pretty.

"Thank you," she manages to blurt out, before high-tailing it to the bathroom. Kind smiles greet her all the way, and Emma feels the compassion washing over her like another burst of magic. These people, who lived such hard lives and then got cursed by an angry queen, they can still show kindness and not get scared of stuff like this. It's just poor, broken Emma Swan who reacts to this kind of treatment like its acid poured on her skin.

She's just about cleaned herself up again when the door swings open. Expecting a mocking Regina, Emma tenses, but instead she's confronted with the sight of her mother, who's seemingly bursting to share some further news.

"The beans are almost ready!" Mary Margaret blurts, clasping her hands together in glee. "So we really need to have a proper talk about our options."

"I know what you're going to ask," Emma sighs. "And I don't want to be the one wrecking the fragile peace again, but I really don't want to go back there. I grew up here, and so did Henry. That world isn't safe for people like us. Or you, judging by our time there."

"We're talking about going back in teams," Mary Margaret explains, and in that moment Emma sees the Queen her mother was always intended to be. "Without the threat of Cora, it should be possible to resettle the land and rebuild quite quickly."

"Well, I don't have any skills you need there," Emma reminds her.

"Emma, I don't know how else to say this, so I'm just gonna say it," Mary Margaret approaches then, taking Emma's hands in her own. "I love you so much, my darling girl. And I know you don't want to be a princess, but I want so badly to be your mother, if only you'll let me."

"I want to let you," Emma admits. "But I stopped needing a Mommy a long time ago, Mary Margaret."

"I know," Mary Margaret tells her, and she makes no effort to hide the tears shimmering in her eyes. "But you've been having such a hard time. I wondered if a fresh start, without all the temptations of this world, might be just what you need?"

Emma wants to resist, and the angry teenager in her that hasn't quite left wants to throw the offer back in Mary Margaret's face, but too many years of wanting to be wanted this way takes the wind right out of Emma's sails.

"Even if I did," Emma considers. "What about Henry? What about Regina?"

"Well, you and Henry would stay with us in the rebuilt castle," Mary Margaret explains. "It's a lot more spacious than my one-bedroom apartment, that's for sure."

"And Regina?" Emma presses, because she's learned nothing in the past twenty-eight years if not how to go for the jugular.

"That's more... complicated," Snow concedes. "Before the curse we were protected from her in our land; she couldn't harm your father or me anymore. But with Rumpelstiltskin weakened, I suspect she's already considered ways around his enchantment."

"You say that like she's still the Evil Queen," Emma accuses, arms folded over her chest as she pulls away from her mother's grip.

"Emma," Snow says carefully. "She always will be. I don't know what you've been doing over there, and frankly I don't want to know. But she's been damaged for a very long time. Returning to a land full of magic is a risk we can't take with her."

"You're gonna leave her behind?" Emma demands, feeling sick to her stomach at the thought of anyone abandoning Regina like that again. Hell, even before the end of the curse and all the ugly truths that came with it, Emma had already diagnosed a pretty severe case of abandonment issues at work.

"We'll give her a choice," Snow states. "She can remain here, or when we return to the Enchanted Forest, she'll be exiled to a land that does not allow passage back to ours. It's the fairest we could think of, when half the Kingdom is still calling for her head."

"Yeah, I'm not getting into the Game of Thrones crap tonight," Emma decides. "Things are... better right now. I don't want to mess that up, okay?"

"Okay," Snow says kindly. "We'll talk next week, maybe."

"Maybe," Emma says through gritted teeth, heading back out into the diner and trying not to let her anger and confusion play out on her face. Just in time she stops her fingers from flexing into fists, because Regina cuts her off before Emma can take a seat at the long table.

"It's just Coke," Regina says, handing her a glass. "I didn't know if you wanted-"

"That's fine," Emma snaps, before smiling to ease the sudden tension. "Sorry, it's just... them. Family stuff."

"Yes, your every interaction with them reminds me why I killed most of my family," Regina says wryly. "Sorry," she amends, off Emma's shocked stare. "I forget that you people don't joke about that kind of thing."

"Emma!" Henry is already buzzed from whatever sugar he's been allowed away from Regina's watchful gaze. "Come sit with me and Gramps. I'm trying to explain soccer to him."

"I should..." Emma nods towards the empty seat.

"By all means," Regina says, her smile back to being tight and not even slightly happy. "I need to catch up with Kathryn, anyway."

Regina stalks off towards the blonde at the other end of the corner, and Emma sighs in what might be relief. It puts the conversation off for a couple of hours, at least.

"Did your mom talk to you?" David asks the minute Henry darts off to talk to some of the kids from his class.

"Yeah, but I really don't want to get into it," Emma deflects as best she can.

"I need to go back, Emma," he says, and the words are firm in a way she isn't expecting. "That's my land. That's where I mean to be buried some day, in the soil I worked with my bare hands."

"I get that," Emma says. "But apart from the first ten minutes of my life, this is my land."

"Don't make me go back without my daughter," David says, clamping a hand down on her shoulder and sounding so sad Emma's worried she might start blubbing again. "We just got you back, and a grandson, too. Please don't make us lose that just because we have a duty to everyone else."

"Seems that duty is what keeps screwing you," Emma remarks. "Maybe if you put your family first, it wouldn't be able to do that."

"Maybe you're right," David sighs. "But will you at least promise to think about it?"

"That much I can promise," Emma agrees, reaching for the bowl of mashed potatoes that's making its way round the table, just in time for Mary Margaret to take her seat opposite them. "Now what do you say we do what we all came here to do, and eat?"

* * *

The drive home is a quiet one, Henry slumped in the back of the Bug, sugar high finally worn off. Regina sits stiffly in the passenger seat, barely moving except to turn the music down when Emma's omnipresent mixtapes get a little too grungy for Regina's comfort.

"I'm going to bed," Henry grumbles as he pours himself out of the car and makes a beeline for the porch. "My tummy feels weird."

"Sugar," Emma and Regina say in unison, before breaking off and smiling at one another.

"I think we should have a nightcap," Reinga says once they're safely in the foyer. "And you can tell me whatever your mother said to have you attacking your peas like an axe murderer at dinner."

"It's nothing, Emma insists, but Regina already knows better. She leads them into the den and pours generous measures of Scotch.

"It's something," Regina corrects. "And if it's only going to annoy you into getting wasted or doing something reckless, then it's better to share. I assure you, I can take it."

"I thought you weren't judging me if I-"

"I'm only offering because you've said you don't want to be driven to that anymore," Regina amends. "Otherwise, it's your business."

"They're getting ready to go home," Emma blurts out. "And they want me to go with them. Henry, too."

"But not me," Regina states, drink in hand and eyes darker than usual. Emma expected histrionics, some shattering glass maybe; this eerie calm wasn't even close.

"I don't know exactly what... they were talking about exile," Emma offers, her own glass now heavy in her hands. "I told them I would think about it. It goes without saying that you need to get access to Henry, however it shakes out."

"Well, it sounds like something you should sleep on," Regina suggests. "So in the meantime, bed," Regina insists, standing up and pulling Emma by the hand.

"What about-"

"We won't see Henry again tonight," Regina supplies as the robe ripples to the floor. "He'll have gone in there to sleep but will be playing XBox instead. You're a terrible influence."

"If being raised by you hasn't turned him into a serial killer, video games don't stand a chance," Emma tells her, as Regina leads her patiently up the grand staircase to the second floor.

They're in no particular hurry, but there's a momentary freezing at the sound of footsteps in the hall. Thankfully Henry runs to the bathroom and no further, much to their breath-holding relief.

Regina takes advantage of the reprieve to lead them the rest of the way to her bedroom and by the time they close the door, Henry is padding quite happily back to his own room without a word.

Emma's barely done sighing in relief when Regina starts shimmying out of her dress. Although she's in the habit of leaving her lingerie on as long as possible to titillate Emma, today Regina unclasps the dark bra and slides the panties off with no ceremony at all.

"We have time," Regina murmurs. "But in case of interruption..."

She wastes no further time, tugging at Emma's clothes and pushing her closer to the bed after each item is discarded. When Emma hits the mattress she's stripped bare, and Regina doesn't hesitate to lay her own warm, naked skin over Emma's in the kind of sinuous movement that leaves her thinking there has to be magic involved. Regina's body responds like a high-performance car does, all subtle rippling of muscle and smooth acceleration. It's enough to make a girl's head spin, even without a few drinks in the tank.

Regina's mouth is relentless from the first kiss at the base of Emma's throat. Every inch of skin from collarbone to elbow, from wrist to fingertip and from nose to navel is subject to a soft kiss, a playful lick or a sassy little bite. Emma could try to assert some control, but the long, tiring day and the drinks have left her pliable, content to be thoroughly spoiled.

Not that Regina's hands stay out of it for long. They grasp at Emma's hips, tease her messy curls out of the bun she improvised for their evening out, and eventually end up with fingers laced through fingers, clasping hands together as Regina settles between Emma's thighs.

"This," Regina says, before licking in one bold stripe along Emma's wetness. "Is what I'm actually addicted to."

"Very funny," Emma groans, but any further complaint dies out as Regina's tongue picks up the pace. By the time two, and then three, fingers curl inside of her, Emma is sobbing broken words into the pillow, her back as taut as the bow she learned to use in the Enchanted Forest.

"I love you," Emma spits as Regina's fingers slow to a stop, still pressed inside Emma, lingering. "I mean actual, embarrassing like in an 80s movie, love you. Is that fucked up or what?"

"Emma-" Regina warns, because feelings are absolutely not allowed, and Emma damn well knows that already. She shifts position, grinding slowly against Emma's thigh, coating it with considerable wetness on each roll of her hips. "You don't have to say these things just because we've fucked a few times."

"Way more than a few times, Regina. You don't understand," Emma argues, pressing her fingers deftly between her own thigh and Regina's clit, rubbing hard until Regina's head drops and her back tenses in anticipation.

Barely a moment after she comes, Regina rolls off Emma and sits up, knees pulled quickly to her chest in the definition of a defensive posture. "I'm saying that I'm in love with you."

"You can't possibly know that," Regina says, squeezing her eyes closed and clearly trying not to reach for the Vicodin they both know is just a few feet from their naked bodies. "This is just a reaction to your parents' ultimatum. You don't know that."

"I do," Emma insists. "Because I've never felt it before. That's how I know. So you can stop pulling away, and freaking out. I love you, Regina. Please, please don't leave me."

"I don't want you to love me," Regina admits. "Love has been cruel enough to me for one lifetime. I don't know if I can-" she starts to say, but Emma's kissing her again, tongue absorbing Regina's words with firm strokes.

"You don't have to," Emma promises, when they part to catch their breath. "You don't."

"I didn't expect this, Regina admits. "I thought it would just be sex, for you."

"Speaking of which, I've been waiting to taste you all damn day," Emma points out, sliding across the mattress and rolling onto her stomach. "You ready for me?"

But Emma doesn't wait for an answer before pushing Regina's thighs apart. Emma's tongue flickers over Regina's clit a moment later, and any last protest dies right there on Regina's lips.

* * *

Kathryn calls just as Emma is drifting off to sleep, both she and Regina having freshened up, brushed their teeth as they've lectured Henry to do every night, and having downed a few little white pills each without comment from either of them. In the peace of the bedroom Regina is so startled at the unexpected call that she drops her phone, meaning they're both wide awake by the time the call is answered.

"Well, can't the Blue...I see," Regina is all business, which Emma's libido responds to in an instant. This insatiable thing could be a problem, only the Vicodin ever seems to tamp it down a little, and not by much.

"I have to go," Regina sighs as she ends the call. "They've found an animal they believe to be someone in cursed form. A rat, of all things. So they need someone to try turning him or her back to their correct form."

"And you're going?" Emma splutters.

"Who else can they ask?" Regina counters. "You can't use your magic properly, Rumple is still too weak to be of any use... besides, it might not hurt to show that I'm not entirely evil."

"You're trying to, what, impress my parents?" Emma asks, incredulous to say the least.

"No, but I would like to remind them how much better equipped to run a Kingdom I am," Regina says as she finishes pulling on sensible black slacks and a burgundy sweater. "Can you check on Henry before you go back to sleep? I was just about to anyway."

"Sure," Emma mumbles, pulling Regina's robe on and following her out of the bedroom. "I'm going to grab some water, too. Maybe make some tea."

"Great," Regina says, and she dashes down the stairs with urgency that Emma suspects has far more to do with her own emotional outburst than anything else.

The kitchen is lit well enough from the moon pouring through the windows, so Emma doesn't bother with the light. She opens the fridge at the same time as the front door closes, and tries to ignore the pang in her chest at being left here without Regina.

So she grabs a cold bottle of beer instead of the water jug. Emma shrugs to herself as she twists the cap off. One really isn't going to hurt.

* * *

The second bottle makes her really sleepy, so she rests her head on the kitchen table, and lets her eyes close all by themselves.

* * *

It's loud. So freakin' loud. And dark. But then there's blue lights, and maybe some streetlights, and Emma can kind of see them every time her eyes flicker open a little.

Someone is yelling her name, and it sounds like they're crying. Emma forces her eyes to open, but it takes more than just one attempt. When she does, a vaguely familiar face is leaning over her, his face streaked with some kind of dirt.

"Emma?" He asks, and that's when she remembers: Jake, the paramedic. He makes a habit to hit on her whenever their paths cross at this hospital or Granny's.

"What-" she starts to ask, but instead of words she simply wheezes.

Then Regina is there, and she's grabbing Emma's shoulders like right before they make out, and Emma wants to tell her no, because her mouth feels really dry and weird. But Regina doesn't kiss her, doesn't even try.

"What happened?" Regina says, and she's actually shaking Emma now, hard enough for it to hurt. "Emma!" Regina yells as someone pulls her away. "Where's Henry?"

* * *

**Thank you, as always, for your lovely reviews, comments and questions. They really make all the difference. Only two chapters left now, would love love LOVE to hear what you think so far.**


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: **

**Emma and Henry are taken to hospital, and we find out just why the hell they need to be there in the first place (there were a lot of interesting guesses based on clues at the end of Chapter 10). Regina and Emma aren't in the best of mindsets here, so you'll have to forgive a little harshness again.**  
**Bear in mind, please, that we're in Emma's head right now. Her perception is not necessarily the reality of the situation, particularly when it comes to her and the way others feel about her.**

* * *

So go ahead and have a taste of your own medicine  
And I'll have a taste of mine  
But first let's toast to the lists  
That we hold in our fists  
Of the things that we promise to do  
Differently next time  
**Ani DiFranco - Marrow**

* * *

They're wrestling her into Storybrooke's one ambulance when Emma hears Regina's cry. It sounds like an animal caught in a trap, and Emma's stomach does the most horrible somersault at the sound.

_He can't be dead. He can't be dead._

She's chanting over and over, as though stopping it is the only thing that will kill her son.

Emma thinks she's saying it to herself, in her head, but the paramedics look at her with enough stunned concern to confirm that she's saying the words out loud.

There's a sudden flurry of activity, barked words from Regina and David is shouting, maybe, but a moment later Henry is on a stretcher in the bunk space opposite Emma, and despite the soot on his face and the oxygen mask, she can see that the kid is at least breathing.

She's never been more relieved in her life. It's even more stunning than when her kiss woke him in the hospital; that had been more shock than anything, with no real expectations. It's so much stronger now, the relief, and she figures it has to be all the time spent trying to be a real parent that's done it.

Regina's trying to push her way onto the back of the rig, but Jake politely blocks her way with a firm "we need space to work". David offering to bring Regina in his truck is the last thing Emma hears before the doors slam shut and the ambulance roars into life.

The men work quickly and quietly on Henry, squeezing the oxygen bag in a rapid rhythm that has Emma hypnotized. Her own mask is clammy against her face, her warm breath trapped in it, making her feel like she's suffocating even as her lungs inflate and deflate on cue.

When there's space, she reaches out to squeeze Henry's hand. It's then that he opens his eyes at last, right as they're pulling up to the hospital entrance. Emma drops his hand again, pulls her mask off just in time, and throws up all over the floor.

* * *

At least it isn't Whale, Emma thinks as the brisk female doctor shines a light in her eyes and listens to her chest with a stethoscope. Emma's no medical expert, but she's got about ten years of watching ER under her belt, and more than a few Emergency Room and Free Clinic visits peppered her misspent youth. They're going to freak out about smoke inhalation, but so far it doesn't feel any worse than the nights when she smokes ten Marlboro Lights along with her whisky.

"I'm fine," Emma insists, trying to push her way out from under the scratchy blue sheets, but the doctor has her pinned with basically zero effort. There's no twinkling smile to go with the push to the mattress, either. There isn't time, somehow, to ask which fairytale character the woman used to be, but Emma's getting a strong vibe of the grumpy old witch from Rapunzel.

"You can't leave this bed until we've finished examining you," the doctor says firmly, even though the nurses are busy in the hall and she's the only person doing anything to Emma. They've already removed her ruined robe and treated the burns on her arms and legs, thankfully minor but still stinging like a bitch. "And then there may be further tests."

"My kid," Emma pleads, and okay, maybe it sounds a little bit worse than the morning after a spot of social smoking. "I need to know he's okay."

"We'll keep you updated," the doctor replies, scribbling on Emma's chart. "You're going to need a chest x-ray for sure, but I want you to stay here on oxygen for a while first, so we can monitor your vitals."

"Whatever," Emma says with a nod, already plotting her earliest possible escape from this room into wherever they're treating Henry. Maybe Regina will help with the smuggling when she shows up.

Speaking of the not-quite-devil, Emma sees the dark-haired whirlwind of Regina pass down the hallway outside her room. Emma's parents follow behind her, still hurrying, but without the same level of panic as Regina obviously has. Emma feels her stomach sink all over again.

"Emma!" Mary Margaret is crying before she even reaches the bed. She looks to the doctor for permission and receives a simple nod before pulling Emma into a crushing hug.

"Ow!" Emma protests, but nobody listens and then her father lays his hand gently on top of her head and all the things she's been so desperately trying not to feel since she opened her eyes start to explode like the sky on the Fourth of July.

It isn't crying, not really. It's just noise and a sensation like the bones in her face are being pushed outwards by all the things she has no idea how to feel. It's the lingering fear of not knowing what the hell has happened, and the dull wheeze in her chest every time she breathes. It's the panic of not being able to see Henry, of him not being here right now to roll his eyes and say he's fine, duh.

And it's a little, tiny bit that Emma wishes Regina were holding her right now more than anyone else.

Not that they do that, exactly. The only time they come close to hugging is more a naked sort of clinging to each other after sex, but Emma's learned not to ask for more than she can handle.

"Stay in bed," the doctor commands, when the sobs subside. "That tube doesn't leave your nose until I'm happy you've taken in enough oxygen, understood?"

"My... son," Emma tries to argue, but forming words is still too hard.

"Your parents can keep you updated," the doctor says, and this time it's not so unkind when she takes in the mess that Emma no doubt is. "I mean it, stay put, Sheriff Swan."

As the doctor leaves, Emma wriggles free of the joint embrace David and Mary Margaret have wrapped her in. Her head is pounding, and she's relieved to see a glass of ice water already waiting by her bed.

"So?" She asks, voice raspy but steadier. "Can someone tell me what the hell happened? And uh, get Regina in here as soon as she's checked on Henry?"

Her parents exchange another of their silent communication looks and suddenly Emma feels much, much worse.

* * *

"But..." Emma doesn't know which fact to argue with first.

She hadn't been cooking, and she doesn't remember doing a single thing after falling asleep two pulls into her second bottle of beer, right there at Regina's kitchen table. How that computed to a house fire and Emma being found by the front door of the house, pulled to safety by the volunteer fire officers, she just doesn't understand.

"The fire officers are pretty sure the fire broke out in the kitchen, but it's still smoldering so nobody can really investigate properly yet," David continues his report, seemingly more comfortable with the facts than the story they're all no doubt conjuring in their own heads already.

"If I was by the door," Emma interrupts. "Why were they still looking for Henry when I came around? Surely he was right there with me?"

"Well," Mary Margaret can't look Emma in the eye. "They found him still upstairs, so..."

"I didn't go upstairs?" Emma tries so hard not to put the pieces together. "I just... left him?" This time, she thinks, if she's sick she'll never stop.

"I'm sure you were running for more help," David insists. "Or to raise the alarm."

"Why would I leave him?" Emma begs them for a more plausible answer.

"That," Regina's voice says from the doorway, voice cold enough to freeze a person solid. "Is a very good question."

* * *

"How's Henry?" All three of them ask, the question overlapping and garbled.

Regina looks angrier and still somehow more terrified than Emma has ever seen her. Even the usually unflappable Snow White and Prince Charming draw back with an instinctive sort of fear. She isn't meeting Emma's gaze, and that's a bigger warning sign than Emma ever expected to look for.

"They had to..." Regina flounders for a moment, violently shaking hands pressed to her soot-streaked face while she gathers her thoughts. "They couldn't get the tube in his throat. So they had to cut a hole, and uh..."

"Regina," Emma pleads. "Is he going to be okay?"

"They don't know yet," Regina says simply. "He was hardly burned at all, can you believe that? But his lungs are small, he's never been very big for his age, you see and, well...They're doing everything they can. I can't go in until he's moved to a sterile room."

"Can I at least see him?" Emma yanks the tube from her nose, and tries to push her uncooperating legs off the bed, but her ankles betray her the minute her feet touch the floor. David's the first to react, holding her up even as she tries to fight him off.

"No," Regina says, and the cold voice is back again, colder than Chicago in January. "I've told the nurses they can answer any questions, but you three stay away from us."

"Regina!" Mary Margaret erupts then, and in this sudden clash of the Momma Bears, Emma realizes why she'll always be languishing in third place. "I know you're scared, and worried, but we all love that little boy just as much as you do."

"No," Regina corrects, and she actually crosses the small room to grab Mary Margaret by the lapels of her jacket. "Love is easy for you. Love comes to you everywhere you turn. But he is all I have." Her voice cracks then, and it's not the Evil Queen anymore, but just a petrified woman who suddenly looks as young as a high school girl. "I won't let you and your family take anything else from me, Snow."

"He needs his family," Mary Margaret pleads, and Emma knows it must be bad if the woman who put a knife to Mulan's throat for a compass isn't even fighting back.

"Don't make me defend him, or myself for that matter," Regina warns, shoving Mary Margaret towards the wall, smirking as she stumbles. "Because this time, I won't choose painless methods."

"Regina!" It hurts to yell, but Emma feels the occasion demands it. She fumbles for her nasal tube, because actually it's not the easiest thing to breathe without it.

"Enough," Regina snaps. This time she looks directly at Emma, and there's so much unguarded loathing in Regina's eyes that Emma feels faint just meeting the stare.

Then to make things infinitely, perfectly worse, Neal appears just outside Emma's room. If he gets it in his head to make some stupid romantic gesture now out of panic, Emma's sure she's going to lose what little is left of her mind. At least it gives her an excuse to break eye contact with Regina, who seems half a breath away from hexing them all.

His face doesn't exactly look like he has a big proposal in mind, though, Emma is forced to admit. In fact he looks angry, and that's becoming way too much of a theme. Neal casts his eyes over the other people in Emma's room, as though sizing up opponents in a fight, and Emma senses yet another tiny shift in the air that says: fucked it up again, girl.

"Regina," Neal says, voice gruff, and it startles them all that he would say her name, no one more so than Regina herself. "How's Henry?"

"They had to make a hole in his throat to intubate him," she answers, and this time it sounds more like fact than the ramblings of a devastated mother. "They can't tell me anything for certain."

"Neal, we can't see him yet," Emma explains, hoping that he's just having trouble expressing himself and it's coming out in the angry posture and the clenching fists. He looks like he just pulled a jacket on over pajamas, his sweatpants and ratty t-shirt certainly not any kind of outdoor wear.

"You, maybe you don't talk right now, huh?" Neal turns the rage on her then, and David puts a reflexive arm out in front of Emma, the threat all too obvious.

"It was an accident," Emma moans. "I don't even remember what happened yet."

"I know Regina wasn't there," Neal says. "She left Henry with you."

"We shouldn't be pointing fingers until we know the facts," Mary Margaret interrupts. "Emma could just as easily have been killed, too. And since this wouldn't be the first time Regina tried to get rid of someone-"

Regina lunges for Mary Margaret again, with purple magic misting from her fingertips, but this time it's Neal who holds her back.

"Speaking of facts," he says. "I just got done talking with one of the guys who put out the fire. Turns out they found some cracked and melted beer bottles right there on top of the mess in the kitchen. Didn't even need to go looking."

"I wasn't-"

"You said you were going to make _tea_", Regina spits. "Did you burn the kitchen down by changing your drink halfway through? Is that how you almost killed our son and ruined my home?"

"Listen," Emma says. "I didn't even start making tea. I thought the kettle might wake up the kid, when it whistles."

"How considerate," Regina snarls. "So you skipped straight to boozing and started the fire some other way?"

"Regina," Neal interrupts. "I understand how pissed you are at Emma, because I am too. But can I see him? I know I wasn't around, and I have no rights here, I know that. But I've been going out of my mind worrying-"

"Fine," Regina cuts him off. "Come with me."

"No, come on," Emma pleads, reluctantly plucking the oxygen tube away, but her lungs betray her with wracking coughs that continue until Regina and Neal have disappeared down the hallway.

The silence that descends over the room is suffocating.

"Did they, uh," Mary Margaret starts to ask, but she shoots a pleading glare at David.

"Did they draw blood when you came in?" David asks.

"Yeah," Emma says, slumping back against the pillows. "So I guess they'll be testing my blood alcohol, right?"

"Probably," David agrees. "So if you say you weren't drinking-"

"I had one bottle, I swear," Emma insists. "I fell asleep during my second and then who the hell knows what happened after that?"

"Okay," Mary Margaret says, pulling up one of the visitor chairs. "You should start sipping some water. And whatever happens, we'll stand by you, Emma."

"Even if I started the fire or abandoned my own kid?" Emma asks.

"Oh, Emma," Mary Margaret sighs. "Don't you know by now? That's how unconditional love works."

* * *

Emma drifts off quickly, still beyond exhausted. She thought worry would keep her awake, but even with hostility she feels comforted knowing that Regina is watching over Henry.

She wakes up to see her parents sitting on the couch in the corner, holding hands and muttering to each other in that deadly serious way they have.

"Any news on Henry?" Emma rasps, reaching gingerly for the water again.

"I'll go check," David offers, leaving Emma alone with Mary Margaret, who returns to her post at the side of the bed.

"Tired?" Mary Margaret asks, smoothing Emma's hair out of her face without being asked.

"Yeah," Emma admits. "I didn't want to, with the kid still in danger and all, but I'm exhausted."

"That's okay," Mary Margaret soothes. "You know, in your sleep, it's like you're calling out for someone, but all you ever say is 'mmm'."

"Yeah," Emma shrugs. "Other people told me that. You know, over the years. It makes Regina crazy," she adds, for no reason other than misplaced spite.

"If you want to call out for your mother, no one will judge you. I know we haven't discussed you calling me-"

"I don't say it," Emma snaps. "When I was little I used to call out for Mommy, just like I learned in my first home. Go long enough without ever getting an answer, I guess your pride kicks in."

"Right," Mary Margaret snaps, and she just about manages to look like she hasn't just been socked in the gut. Maybe Queens really do have that natural poise after all.

"You two should go home," Emma follows up. "Once we know Henry's going to be okay. I mean, there's no comfortable place to sleep here."

"We won't leave you alone," Mary Margaret argues. The "not again" is unspoken but hangs heavily in the air regardless.

"I won't be alone," Emma insists. "I'm sure Regina or Neal will check in on me once they calm down." She's lying so hard it almost makes her teeth rattle, and Mary Margaret clearly knows it.

"Emma, listen to me," her mother insists. "You may think you know Regina, but if I know one thing about her it's that once she's angry, it doesn't burn out quickly. She kept a grudge against me simmering for decades. Even if this all turns out to be an accident, she might still blame you for a very long time."

"I love her," Emma says, choking back a sad laugh at the very idea that it makes any difference.

"Oh," Mary Margaret says, bowing her head and taking a very deep breath. "I wondered, when you were so defensive at the diner earlier."

"That's it?" Emma asks. "That's your whole reaction?"

"You're in a hospital bed, and my grandson is still dangerously ill," Mary Margaret reminds her. "We have bigger problems than your heart right now, don't you think?"

David reappears then, smiling kindly at the nurse beside him.

"Ms Swan?" The nurse is a good foot shorter than David, with dark brown skin and warm eyes that Emma feels herself responding to instantly. She isn't even going to try and translate the nurse to fairytales right now, she wants to make this just another hospital visit like getting her bounty-hunting injuries patched up in Boston.

"Henry?" She gasps, hands trembling as she clutches at the sheets.

"We think he's out of the woods for now," the nurse, Kym, replies with a twinkle in her eye. "The doctors are very pleased with how he's responding to treatment, but we're going to have to keep a very close eye on him overnight and tomorrow."

"Oh, thank God," Emma breathes, falling back against her pillows. "If it had... if he'd..." the empty sobs start again, compressing her chest until she thinks she'll stop breathing altogether, only to release enough for a snatched, frantic gulp of air.

"Would you like something to help you sleep?" Kym asks, fixing Emma's kinked IV line and pressing some buttons on her monitors. "Because Sheriff, I am not letting you out of this bed tonight, I promise you that."

"No thanks," Emma has to grit her teeth at the effort it takes to turn it down. "I just need to use the bathroom and then I think I'll get to sleep just fine."

"If you say so," Kym says, helping Emma out of bed and draping the cords over her IV pole. "You tell your parents they should go get some rest?"

"I did," Emma confirms, smiling at them. "Come see me in the morning, you guys?"

"Emma-" Mary Margaret starts to protest, but instead she pulls Emma into a hug, waiting while David takes his turn to do the same.

"Call us if you need anything," David says. "They'll call us if there's news with Henry, too."

"Thank you," Emma whispers, and she means it. For the first time in a long time, she feels the benefit of truly having a family.

* * *

Too many years of sleeping in completely unsafe situations make Emma jolt awake the minute the shadow falls over her bed. The lights have been turned down to very dim, but she'd know who it was even in complete darkness.

"Henry?" She asks, and there's a nod that will have to do for the moment.

"Will you be okay?" Regina asks, though there isn't a scrap of kindness in the question. It sounds like something crossed off a to-do list, no doubt to report back to Henry if and when he's awake and asking questions again.

"I'll live," Emma grunts. "Regina, you have to listen to me, okay?"

"No," Regina corrects her. "I don't."

"I know we're both pretty stressed out, but you really wanna go there? On the whole endangering Henry's life thing?"

"This is not the same. Don't you dare compare the two," Regina warns.

"Why not? You know, your righteous anger would be a lot more interesting to me if it wasn't so full of crap, Regina. It's okay that you lashed out while you were scared but Jesus, you have to let me check on the kid."

"You should have checked on him before trying to run out of a burning house and leave him behind!" Regina shouts, her eyes wild. "Of all the things I thought I could trust you on... you don't abandon family, Ms Swan. I thought you, of all people, would understand that."

"Well, I don't know what 'me of all people' even means, but we don't know that's what was happening, so give me a damn break," Emma shouts right back, not caring if she wakes anyone else on the ward.

"The evidence seems quite clear to me," Regina retorts.

"And you, _of all people_ should know how goddamned easy it is for evidence not to tell the whole story!" Emma feels the anger bubbling inside her now, hot and liquid, so much more familiar and welcome, even, than the guilt and sadness that's been gnawing at her for hours.

"Are you suggesting you were framed?" Regina leans in closer then, her sneer as cruel as Emma has ever seen it. This is the old Regina, one who doesn't seem to remember the nights falling asleep naked and spent, grudgingly held in the limp circle of Emma's arms. "Because you weren't. And right now, I have no intention of letting you see Henry ever again. I was right in the first place, to want you the hell out of my town."

"I can't help that he came to find me," Emma replies, trying not to wonder how Regina can still be so detached from everything that's happened between them. This conversation should be about Henry, of course it should, but when it comes to running Emma out of town, shouldn't Regina have her own reasons for not wanting that by now?

"It's your fault that you stayed where you weren't wanted," Regina taunts. "Something of a theme for you. You're just another stray puppy, another injured bird that Henry took pity on."

"And maybe if you weren't a fucking murderer, or a pathological goddamned liar, that poor kid wouldn't have run out in the world thinking anything was a better option than you!" Emma's clutching the sheet hard enough for the thin fabric to tear, but it barely registers.

"Well," Regina draws back then, because apparently she can still feel when the worst insults land. "I think the whole town might be reconsidering its idea of a fit parent right about now. And neither you, nor the idiots who didn't raise you, can be trusted with Henry's safety."

"And you can, while you're popping pills to stop you killing his family with magic?" Emma asks, not ready to let go of this cruel line of argument just yet. "Tell me, if I checked the fresh bottle in your purse, how many would be missing already?"

"I have back pain," Regina says, sullen at the latest jab. "Not helped by having to deal with a fire in my house."

"You know, I bet if I bribed Whale for the info, he'd confirm what I've suspected the whole time: there isn't a damn thing wrong with your back, is there? You're just taking the edge off, and that makes you no better than what you accuse me of."

"Of being a goddamned lush?" Regina barks, but she deflates immediately after, too tired even for her usual white-hot rage. "I have pain, Emma."

"We're all in pain, sister," Emma drawls, relieved to have turned the tables, at least for a moment. "But you stand there and judge me for taking my pain for a swim in some Pinot."

"You were with Henry," Regina reminds her. "We had a deal about my son."

"Our son," Emma corrects, but then the anger is fading as she suddenly sees a future of custody battles and vicious arguments and Henry between them, crying about how crappy it all is. "What about us?"

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Regina asks with a snort. Her clothes are the same as earlier, disheveled and soot-streaked, and of course she's the dedicated mother who hasn't stopped even to grab some clean clothes yet. That's who she is, even when it's creepy possessive or murderously protected; that's the kind of person Regina is.

"Well, a few hours ago I was telling you that-"

"Enough," Regina says, holding up her hand. "I told you then that love has been cruel to me. I didn't think it was cruel enough to endanger my son, but I suppose I can't really be surprised anymore."

"Regina-"

"The awful part?" Regina adds, her voice dropping to a whisper. She looks so sad as she reaches out to touch Emma's face, the touch barely a ghost of the usual contact, so light that Emma can't be sure she isn't imagining it. She leans into the touch anyway, forcing her cheek harder against Regina's fingertips, to make it count. "Is that I thought I could feel something for you, too," Regina continues, her fingers stroking gently over Emma's raw skin.

The hand slips away, but before the soft cry of missing it can pass Emma's lips, a stinging slap lands right on the edge of the strip of burned skin on her cheek. The cry it provokes is much louder, and there's a lot more pain.

"That's for making me trust you," Regina states, apparently calm again. She watches Emma in fascination as she fights back tears, bottom lip trembling. Even though her mouth still tastes like ash, Emma doesn't pull back when, just as suddenly, Regina swoops in to press a firm kiss on her mouth.

"And what was that for?" Emma demands as soon as Regina releases her.

But Regina's already marching away, back out into the corridor and off in the direction that Henry's ward must be. A moment later Kym appears, frown already in place.

"What?" Emma grumbles. "I'm still in bed, aren't I?"

"No more noise from you tonight, Sheriff. There's people trying to get well around here."

The sun is already rising, Emma can see it through the tiny window in the corner of her room. She throws herself back on the mattress, ignoring the complaints from her back as she does, and waits for her parents to return.

* * *

Henry remains sedated all day, breathing done for him by the machine as his lungs slowly start the process of healing. David reports back to Emma's room every two hours, having watched Whale scribble on his chart and make reassuring noises to Regina.

When David goes on yet another trip around lunchtime, Emma beckons Mary Margaret closer and makes an appeal to her mother's more rebellious side.

"Think we can get Regina away from Henry's room for ten minutes?"

"Emma-" Mary Margaret's tone is all warning, but her own frustration at not seeing the boy has already sparked in her eyes; Emma knows she's already most of the way there.

"Just come up with a way, let me sneak in and say sorry, okay?" Emma begs. "Would you really be able to stay out the whole time if I was the one in the ICU?"

"No," Mary Margaret admits. "And actually, I already thought of something earlier..."

* * *

Emma leans against the door of the janitor's closet, holding her breath every time a set of footsteps comes a little too close. One person actually jiggles the handle, and Emma's heart stops altogether until she remembers that she locked the damn thing from the inside.

A lifetime later the rapid three knocks finally come, and Emma slips back out into the quiet hallway, head down and marching alongside her mother who steers her to the right door.

"I wouldn't stay longer than five," Mary Margaret warns. "I'm sorry, but I took the first minute or two for myself. I thought if Regina worked it out and came right back, it would be better for her to catch me."

Emma hears the unspoken admission that Mary Margaret wanted her own time with her grandson, and doesn't have the energy to be mad about the selfishness of it. Emma has precisely zero room to talk right now, especially when she can't remember a thing after opening her second bottle and laying her face down on the cool surface of the kitchen table.

"Thank you," Emma murmurs, before pulling away to crouch down beside Henry's bed.

* * *

It takes too long to come up with the words; even this, Emma is screwing up.

"Hey, kid," she says. "I hope they let you wake up soon. Or you do it by yourself. I don't really know the whole story right now."

She waits, listens to him breathing for a moment.

"I am so, so sorry, Henry. I don't know what the hell happened, but even if I didn't cause the fire, I am never going to forgive myself for leaving you behind. That's the kind of thing some of my foster parents would have... I mean, I want you to know that I wanted to rescue you, okay? Whatever stopped me, I am so sorry that it did."

He doesn't stir, although one eyelid flickers slightly. Emma always blamed that on bad acting in her medical dramas, but apparently it happens in life just as naturally.

"Maybe I should never have come here," Emma mutters, reaching for his hand, wrapped in gauze and with his own IV line running into it. "I know the curse is broken, and I'm so glad I got to know you. But I don't think I deserve it, kid."

She has more still to say, but he probably can't hear her anyway. Just as she starts to stand up, she hears a familiar rhythm of heels outside, and a snarl of reprimand for some unsuspecting hospital employee that can't be from anyone but Regina. With seconds to spare, Emma hides herself in the only place the sparse room offers: a metal closet in the corner.

Regina's still grumbling as she comes into the room, stopping only when she folds herself into the ratty sort-of armchair on the opposite side of Henry's bed. Emma can just about see them both if she squints through the slight gap left by the closet door not closing completely. Regina's wearing what appears to be a set of scrubs and her hair is scraped back into a kind of ponytail, makeup and soot cleaned away. She looks like an off-duty nurse, and as exhausted as one who just pulled a double in the ER on a holiday weekend.

"Well," Regina says after five long minutes pass. Emma flips her cell to silent as she checks the time, starting to panic about how the hell she's going to get out of there undetected. "The doctors are very pleased with you Henry, even if the nurses station had no new results for me after all."

Mary Margaret's plan hadn't exactly been a winning Risk strategy or anything, Emma thinks with a frown; she's beginning to understand how despite being good and having armies, her parents still got everyone cursed to another dimension. She stretches as much as she dares in the confined space, the slippers on her feet barely keeping them warm, and her robe and nightgown combo offering really no comfort at all. She figures she can stay crouched like this for about half an hour, and then she's going to have to find a very quiet way to move.

She just needs to last that long without coughing, the very thought of which makes her throat dry up in an instant. Great.

"Henry?" Regina says, and it's so soft that it startles Emma. She's never heard Regina sound so... well, kind. "Baby, you're going to be waking up soon. I don't want you to be scared, okay? Your throat is going to hurt for a while, and you won't be able to talk to me. But I'll be right here the whole time."

There's a rustle of the sheets, and Emma concentrates on breathing as quietly as possible.

"You're going to be fine, Henry, but this is the last time you're going to end up in hospital, if I have anything to do with it," Regina continues. "I'm so sorry that you've already been here because of me. Losing you once has been hard enough, I don't think I could have... anyway. You're going to be fine."

Emma closes her eyes and blocks out the new wave of guilty thoughts and accusations her own brain is hurling at her. Her own grief would be bad enough, but to take Henry from Regina now that Emma knows how much she's already lost? That would be straight past 'unkind' and right into 'sadistic', whether Emma intended it or not.

Maybe Regina was onto something when they argued. A dozen foster families, another six group homes, all of them throwing Emma out or sending her back; forever the one piece that just didn't fit. Even here, after breaking curses and doing things that shouldn't even be possible, Emma found her real family; but are they happy and well-adjusted and making up for lost time? No, Emma's uncomfortable every time they look at her, and instead of bonding with them she's shacked up with their mortal enemy.

Somewhere along the line, this became a pattern, and Emma just didn't want to admit it.

She hasn't even been throwing away a relationship with her parents for anything that counts. Regina doesn't feel anything real for her, no matter how much Emma embarrasses herself with slightly-tipsy declarations. Throw in the whole sleeping with a woman thing when it's apparently a dealbreaker for all her lost family's hopes and dreams of making more Princes and Princesses, and Emma's fucking things up in just about every way a person can.

So she should get the hell out of this cupboard, face the music with Regina, and slink off to be alone, which is the best place for her right now.

Just as Emma pushes the door though, Regina starts speaking again, and so Emma stops. Maybe it's that she's been sleeping with someone she actually didn't know at all for months, or maybe it's because she expects to overhear more bad things about herself and just can't resist the sad temptation of it.

And resisting temptation isn't exactly her strong suit.

"I'm going to do better, Henry," Regina says, leaning over him. Emma doesn't need a clear view to know that tears are forming in Regina's eyes. "Although my first instinct seeing you like this is to magic it all away, I'm trying so hard to respect your wishes. You have to know how hard that is for me."

"And you don't know this part, but I've been taking some... medicine to stop me doing magic. But that's bad for me, the way Emma's drinking is bad for her. So this morning I've thrown away all of the pills I have with me, and I'll do the rest when I next go home."

Damn, Emma thinks. She's never heard Regina sound so utterly convinced of anything in all the time she's known her.

"I know you've been worried about Emma," Regina carries on, and Emma stiffens in anticipation. "I'll tell you a secret: I am, too. But we have to look after you, first of all. She might not be able to live with us, Henry. Once the house is fixed up enough for us to go back, anyway."

Regina breaks off then, and the snuffling confirms she's crying. Emma realizes that Regina probably isn't getting a scrap of help right now. Will Geppetto come and repair the woodwork in the house? Will anyone offer to donate furniture, not that Regina would ever accept it?

And when Henry's well enough to go home? David and Mary Margaret will take him in a heartbeat, but Regina won't allow that as long as she's still breathing, not now. Emma chews on her bottom lip as she considers everything she's heard, and just as she's about to reveal herself, Regina is called out of the room by another nurse.

Emma flees as soon as she can no longer hear Regina's footsteps in the corridor, not stopping even to kiss the kid goodbye. She has the beginnings of a plan in a place, a small way to make amends for all that's happened, but right now she needs to get a drink of water and lie the hell down for a while.

* * *

Hook leans against the doorframe, and even though he's traded pirate leathers for motorcycle ones, all the better to ride August's bike around town, he still looks like a genuine edition bad boy. Emma's kind of relieved, because that's exactly what she needs right now, having sent her very good parents home for the evening again.

"You gotta help me out. Can you sneak me out of here when no one's looking?" Emma asks.

"I don't know this town all that well yet," Hook says, by way of hesitation. "And are you sure you should be going anywhere in this state?"

"I need to get away for a few days," Emma feels the tears come unbidden. "I can't stay here and have everyone look at me this way. I can't. I'm not strong enough."

"You'd be surprised how strong you are," Hook assures her, but he's already moving towards her and offering his one good hand. "But I've never been one to turn down a damsel in distress."

"And shamelessly take advantage of her, I'm sure," Emma grumbles through her tears. With the tip of his hook, he pulls a clean silk hanky from his pocket, and Emma dabs at her face gratefully.

"Now, the nurses are all in a little room watching one of these television things," Hook informs her. "So I suggest we move now, if we're going."

"Fine," Emma says, slipping out of bed and pulling off her robe and revealing the clean clothes she put on under it during her last trip to the bathroom. "And if you hit on me while I'm in this state, pirate, I'm going to declare you officially desperate, understood?"

"I wouldn't dare. Back to her Majesty's?" Hook asks as they skirt past the nurses' station and down a dark corridor towards an emergency exit.

"No, my old apartment," Emma breathes. "Kathryn hasn't rented it out to anyone else yet, and I need some clean clothes, my wallet and my car. How bad is the, uh, damage at Regina's?"

"If it were a ship, she'd have sunk," Hook confirms. "Some of it is down to the bare timbers. It'll be some job to fix, but then your Queen does have powers we mere mortals don't."

Emma doesn't mention her own latent magic abilities, or Regina's promise not to use hers. She's used to keeping her own secrets, so it's no extra burden to keep Regina's along with them.

"Not sure that works for rebuilding houses," Emma says, as non-committal as she can manage.

"You shouldn't blame yourself," Hook tells her as he disables the door alarm with a jab of his hook, leaving Emma to push the bar and open it. "That way madness lies, and I have 300 years' experience to back that up."

"You're not the only one," Emma says, thinking about Regina and looking back to see if her escape has been noticed. But Storybrooke is back to its sleepy self, and the hospital is no exception.

"Well, Princess," Hook teases. "Your chariot awaits."

He hands her a helmet, and just like with August all those months ago when this was deniable, when all this was downright crazy, Emma slips onto the bike behind him and holds on tight.

* * *

"Why did you want me to wait?" Hook asks as Emma stuffs a backpack full of essentials, grateful she hasn't moved everything to Regina's. "I mean, I brought your car back already."

"And if you dinged up my Bug with your amateur driving," Emma warns.

"A captain is a captain," Hook says huffily. "I can steer any vessel with just a little practice."

"Whatever," Emma says, grabbing the bag, shoving her phone in her pocket and heading towards the apartment's front door. "Come on."

She locks the door when they're both outside, and hands the keys to Hook.

"What are these for?" He asks, curiosity twinkling in those annoyingly blue eyes.

"Give them to Regina," Emma explains. "The house isn't safe, probably, and they won't think to offer her a room at Granny's. She can come here, with Henry when he's ready."

"You're moving in with your parents?" Hook questions, sensing there's more to the story than he's getting.

"Eventually," Emma says. "But like I said, I need to get away from people for a few days. Just until I can cope with the staring, and the whispering."

"That might take a while," Hook points out.

"Then it takes a while," Emma says with a shrug, heading down the stairs towards the street and the freedom that her car offers. "Don't say anything, okay? I'll leave messages for my parents. For Henry."

"It'll look like-"

"Like I'm running out on him again?" Emma finishes. "Yeah, it will. Guess we should all be used to that by now, huh?"

"Emma-"

"Goodbye, Hook," she cuts him off as she opens the car door. "Thanks for the help. I really do appreciate it."

He waves her off with a mock salute as she guns the engine and does a hasty u-turn on the quiet street. Emma turns the music up loud enough for the car to vibrate with the bass, and driving one-handed she fumbles in her backpack for the bottle she stashed there.

Just a quick slug of Jack to warm her up for the drive, she insists silently. And this time, there's nobody to tell her no.

* * *

**Well, here we are. One big chapter to go, back in Regina's POV. Where is Emma heading, and for how long? How do you think Regina is going to take the desertion? Is everything as it seems on first assessment of the fire? Speculate if you like, Chapter 12 will be here soon.**

**As ever, I am in awe of your comments, questions and thoughtful feedback. People aren't kidding when they say SQ is the greatest fandom to write for, and I am just so grateful for all of you who've ridden along with this story so far, when I know it hasn't always been easy.**

**Thank you. And I look forward to your comments on Ch11!**


	12. Chapter 12

"The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish,  
to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place."  
**Michael Chabon - The Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.**

* * *

She wakes up slumped over the bed again, which really does her neck no favors at all. Rolling out the kinks all the way down her spine, Regina stands slowly, feeling as old as the woman she once disguised herself as to trick Jefferson and his daughter.

Checking the strange machines that are starting to make a kind of sense to her, Regina sees that Henry's numbers are all where the doctors want them to stay. He's been a very lucky boy, in some ways, but the gauze bandages at his throat and over his legs and arms remind Regina that he has suffered, and will continue to. Perhaps when he wakes up she can persuade him to let her do healing magic one last time.

The concern, of course, is that she won't be able to. It's still rusty, she frets as she shuffles towards the bathroom in the hospital-issue slippers a nurse brought her earlier. Ever since magic took her mother, Regina has been especially reluctant to use it, and burning the love spell she intended to use on Henry now feels like the first step on a very definite path.

That conviction wavers a little in the harsh fluorescent light of the small bathroom, where the mirror shows every line and shadow of a face that's finally aging after so long frozen in time. It would be so easy to spruce it all up with a wave of her fingers, summon comfortable clothes and the warpaint that hides her true state of exhaustion, but Regina grips the sink and rides it out.

When she steps back into Henry's room, Regina's spine tingles in warning. Sure enough, there's a man in black looming in the doorway, and she raises a hand in defense, before relaxing when Hook steps into the light.

"You're a long way from shore, pirate," Regina greets him, brushing past him as she returns to her post at Henry's bedside. The borrowed scrubs are comfortable, at least, and she really must thank the nurse who left them for her: a daughter of Regina's former cook in her castle. She is not, Regina remembers, quite as alone in this world as she might be. As always, some have remained loyal, even despite the twenty-eight frozen years of not serving her.

"Happens that I'm here on an errand, your Majesty," he replies, mocking bow and all. "Your lady love had something she wants me to pass along to you."

"I have no love, lady or otherwise," Regina corrects him. "And if that's intended to be a reference to Emma Swan? Well, neither Henry nor I need a damn thing from her."

"You might revise that opinion when you see the state of your house," Hook insists, pulling a set of keys from the pocket of his leather jacket. "Which is why the Swan lass wants you to have access to her old place. Seemed to think the town wouldn't embrace you to their collective bosom, even in this time of need."

Regina regards the keys with suspicion, scouring her tired mind for curses or enchantments that would require a key to work. Hook may not have magic, but he's far too chummy with those who do, Regina remembers all too well.

"I don't need a place to stay," Regina argues. "And I can certainly do better than that hovel."

"I'm not so sure you can," Hook counters. "And if you're worried about sharing such cramped quarters with her, don't be."

"Why not?" Regina demands.

"She's going to be moving back in with her parents," Hook explains. "When she gets back to town, anyway."

"She left?" Regina spits, her fury instant and nearly blinding. She jostles Henry's bed as she leaps back to her feet. "Where did she go?"

"Don't look at me, love," Hook holds up his hand and his hook, dropping the keys on the bed like they're hot. "I'm just the bloody messenger. And there was no message about her destination."

"But she left Storybrooke?" Regina confirms, as Hook nods. "That idiot, she's not even supposed to be out of bed, yet. And clear she doesn't give a damn about Henry-"

"I wouldn't say that," Hook interrupts, just as he seems to be taking his leave. "In fact, she seemed pretty heartbroken over the little tyke. Well, far as I can tell, anyway. Not really the paternal type, you know?"

"Did she-"

"I should go," Hook cuts her off again, with his most maddening grin. "I'm sure she'll be in touch."

But Regina isn't sure of any such thing, because since Sidney started digging and Emma has filled in the blanks in their limited pillow talk, Regina has become certain of one thing: when things get tough, Emma Swan runs.

Which might just be enough to break Henry's heart once and for all, something Regina has no intention of allowing to happen.

* * *

Naturally, Snow White comes running, full of blame and recriminations, her puppy of a Prince nipping at her heels.

Regina cuts them off with a glare, a nod towards Henry's sleeping body, and a shrug that says she couldn't care less about the fate of their runaway daughter. Let Hook deliver another message for all Regina cares; this is distinctly not her problem, and she has neither the time nor the energy to care.

It's lucky, really, that along the way she's become such an accomplished liar.

* * *

She dials.

Voicemail.

She hangs up.

* * *

She walks home that afternoon, reluctant even despite another glowing medical report on Henry.

He was awake for the best part of an hour for tests, his eyes wide and frightened while Regina told him all the things she already said to his sedated mind. Glossing over Emma's absence, Regina is able to evade by saying the doctors are no longer worried about her.

The house is worse than she hoped, and almost instantly there's a twitch in her fingers to start repairing it with magic. Taking deep, steadying breaths, Regina thinks of the curse years and all the times when simple fixes weren't available to her; if nothing else this town has some excellent laborers, and she resigns herself to the bribes and bartering that will be necessary to secure services for her that would be readily available to anyone else. Perhaps a son in the hospital will buy a little tenderness, but as Hook warned earlier, these _good_ people have a habit of reserving their kindness only for each other.

Police tape covers every entrance, and even a cursory glance confirms the stairs are impassable. Unable to face more damage, and conscious of every second spent away from Henry's side, Regina turns away from the only true home she's ever had.

She wraps her arms around herself in the borrowed scrub shirt, fingers landing instinctively on the bruises from the firemen restraining her the other night. They'd been as gentle as possible, but Regina had fought them tooth and nail until they'd had to use real force to keep her from searching for Henry amidst the flames, and now the marks line her arms, deep and purple and angry, just like her magic.

Feeling the chill in the air, Regina gets in her debris-coated Mercedes and drives towards the mausoleum. At least there she has some clean clothes and a few home comforts, untainted by smoke.

* * *

The hospital is quieter when she returns, the shift change complete and most patients resting in their rooms once more. When Regina reaches Henry's room, she can't hold back a snarl at the sight of both Charmings waiting outside, wringing their hands and pinched around the face, but the sight of Storybrooke's Fire Chief between them goes a little way to soothing Regina's annoyance.

In the Enchanted Forest he'd been the captain of her guards, a brisk and cunning man by the name of Mercutio. Here, he's grown a thick ginger beard and a thicker waist to boot, but the loyalty to her still shines in Marvin's blue eyes.

"Your Majesty," he greets her, and there isn't an ounce of mockery in the words for once. "We concluded our investigation, and I thought you'd want to hear the findings, along with the Sheriff."

"The Sheriff wasn't available, last I checked," Regina says smoothly. "Her Deputy here will do, especially if she's to be taken into custody anyway."

"That's unlikely," Marvin replies, back ramrod straight as he continues to deliver his report. "The fire had multiple ignition sources. Almost like, well, I haven't seen the likes of it since I saw a barn that one of your fireballs had blown through. With respect."

"Emma has magic," Snow says, and she sounds so morose that Regina can't help but smile, just for a flickering second. To every cloud a silver lining, after all. Until she's forced to correct the assumption.

"Emma's magic is largely dormant," Regina points out. "Unless she's feeling very strong emotion, she has no idea how to access it. Fireballs aren't the most complicated spell, but it's almost impossible to do by accident."

"So who's responsible?" Charming asks, hands on his hips in indignation.

"I would say that's your job," Regina bites back. "I have no shortage of enemies, surely even you can find a place to start." She nods at Neal, currently in with Henry. "You might want to start with his branch of the family tree."

"One other thing," Marvin says. "Obviously there'll be a full written report, but I've heard some talk around town about the Sheriff being found by the door and some nasty rumors as a result."

"It's not your job to tell people not to gossip," Regina reminds him, as kindly as she can. "And though I appreciate the effort, Sheriff Swan neither needs nor deserves our protection."

"Well, that's just it," Marvin presses on, sweat breaking out on his forehead in droplets. He might be able to take down a giant with a swing of his mace, but in the face of his Queen the man still has the good sense to tremble a little. "In my report we mention the staircase quite prominently."

"Out with it," Regina barks.

"Well, a section of the bannister had collapsed," Marvin says. "And in the area we found the Sheriff in, there were bits of it under where she was lying."

"You mean...?"

"Sheriff Swan didn't abandon your son," Marvin states, quite firmly. "She simply couldn't make it to him."

"She did have a lot of bruising on her back," Snow chimes in, so relieved that Regina wants to throttle her.

"Well," Regina says, and though she can keep her mask in place, there's a distinct weakness in her knees. She knows only too well the desperate fear and loathing of feeling responsible hurting Henry, but yet again Emma Swan was at least trying to play the damn hero.

And yet again, a little part of Regina feels cheated. Her crimes, numerous and terrible, have never been excused. Some never should be, and she would accept no pardon, but others were very much the product of a confused and damaged girl manipulated or simply unlucky to be born when she was.

Yet again, the 'good' will have the slate wiped clean. Even though Emma did nothing wrong, it feels like she's escaped consequences somehow, just like every last one of her relatives, and a part of Regina hates her for it.

"If you'll excuse me," Regina says, though the courtesy is for Marvin's sake and not the relieved Charmings. She motions for Neal to come away from Henry's bedside, and he does after a moment. "Baelfire, I believe our Prince has some questions for you about your father and his recovery."

She returns to her place at Henry's side, placing her bag of clean clothes on the chair and kissing his forehead. He'll be awake again soon, and she refuses to miss that moment.

* * *

She dials.

Voicemail.

"It wasn't your fault."

A breath. A pinch to the bridge of her nose because these headaches will not quit.

"Come home."

* * *

It's Charming who comes to the apartment, seven long days later when Henry has just been released and Regina is five minutes from collapsing in sheer exhaustion.

Motherhood has never been an easy task, but nursing a sick child while refusing all but professional support, all the while in an unfamiliar place that still manages to remind Regina of how much Emma is not there at every turn, is enough to leave Regina reeling.

"We found her," Charming says, dark circles beneath his eyes and a day's worth of stubble prickling along his overly-defined jaw. Regina blinks, twice, and waits for the horrible words that must still be to come, wondering how the hell she's going to break this to Henry.

As she nods for him to continue, Regina won't allow herself to acknowledge just how terrified she is, and that has almost nothing to do with the little boy resting peacefully in the living room.

* * *

She slaps Charming when he eventually follows up with, "She's at a motel, in New Hampshire", because his somber expression and deadpan delivery had made it sound like the very worst of news.

After the second slap he catches Regina's wrist and gives her a warning glare, just like at the stables with Daniel, and if ever she's to use magic again, it will be in this moment, in this blinding period of pure, unadulterated rage.

She resists, and for the first time in so very long, Regina is proud of herself.

"I'll tell Henry she's okay," Regina states, moving to close the door, but Charming is too quick for her and pushes his way inside, entitled to the last.

"Not so fast," he challenges, and Regina hears Henry stirring at the sound of another voice in the echoing rooms.

"Be quiet," she snarls. "Henry needs his rest."

"We can't leave town to go get her," Charming says. "But you can, right?"

"I'm not leaving Henry," Regina states, almost stamping her foot for emphasis. "So you can forget that right now."

"We would look after him," Charming argues. "And if it comes to it, I'll cross the line and the hell with my memories. Our daughter needs us."

"No," Regina says. "She doesn't. There's nothing any of you can do for her right now. She has to do it for herself, and anyone from the Bug to a real doctor will tell you as much."

"I don't want to have to order you-" Charming begins, but Regina cuts him off with what feels like her first genuine laugh in a lifetime or so. It finishes the job of waking Henry, and takes her well over a minute to get the mild hysteria back under control.

"Order me?" Regina asks, gasping for breath. "You speak like someone with authority, shepherd. We all know that's not true."

"Can't you magic her back, Mom?" Henry asks from the sofa that comprises his day bed. Apparently it's where he slept when all of them were crammed into this drafty box of a home. "Then nobody has to leave anyone."

"Magic?" Regina repeats, raising her eyebrows in surprise. "But Henry, you begged me not to use it ever again."

"It's easier," he says. "I'm worried about Emma. I want her back."

"Oh, Henry," Regina says, kneeling in front of him and smoothing his hair back off his forehead. "I'm saying this because I love you, but you need to shut up."

"What?" Henry asks, wide-eyed in shock.

"That's where I went wrong before," Regina says, more to herself than anything. "I was only doing this for you. I was trying to make an adult decision using the logic of a ten year-old. And Henry? There's a reason why adults make the rules, and children don't."

"But-"

"I will listen to you about everything else, Henry. I will always listen to you from now on, I promise. But I won't let you dictate these things, when you can't possibly understand them. You should stay a child, while you can still be one."

"But Mom-"

"See? A little boy's protest, and an important one," Regina points out. "It's time I stopped being so concerned with feuds and curses and got back to being your mother, Henry. Are you going to let me?"

He considers for a long moment, with a pleading glance towards his grandfather, but eventually Henry nods. These past few days might have drained Regina of all energy, but they certainly seem to have reminded her son of all she's done for him, and how much more she's willing to do.

"I suggest you speak to Baelfire or Hook," Regina offers as she stands again, directing Charming towards the door. "And I don't suppose there's any progress in chasing down the arsonist?"

"The Blue Fairy did some tests," Charming says with a boyish shrug. Responsibility always sits well on his shoulders at first, but after a short while the slump sets in, and things start sliding off. Regina would envy him the escape route if she weren't so often the one picking up the mess his lack of true leadership creates. "She knows it was magic, for sure, so we're just trying to gather more proof."

"Remember, dear. Even if it's one of your beloved allies? They almost killed your daughter and grandson," Regina cautions. "So think on that before throwing out even more of your easy forgiveness."

"We forgave you, after a fashion," Charming counters, chin lifted in defiance.

"But nothing about that has been easy," Regina says. "You can see yourself out? Henry's dressings need to be changed."

"I'll let you know when we find Emma," Charming promises, though it seems more for Henry's benefit than Regina's.

She doesn't watch him go, but flinches when the door slams just a little harder than necessary.

* * *

In the bathroom, Regina roots through the cupboard and her purse, gathering every pill she salvaged from her old supply and newly-refilled prescription. Henry's dressing packs are in neat piles along the counter, but she ignores them for the moment.

If she thinks too long, she'll stop. She'll find excuses and good reasons to keep just a few, to save for the proverbial rainy day, and Regina knows for the first time that she cannot. She knows that her nature is to always reach for whichever crutch is available, especially when other people are to blame for constantly breaking her legs in the first place. For years she told herself that she deserved the easier path for a change, but it's starting to seem just as ill-advised as heart-ruining curses and smothering Henry with love.

She has to stop punishing herself for the damage already done, or trying to pretend it doesn't exist, and so she drops them into the toilet, pill after rattling pill, until every plastic bottle is empty.

Maybe she is learning from her mistakes, after all.

* * *

Emma knocks on the door Sunday morning, her pale skin almost gray and blonde hair scraped back from her face to disguise the fact that it hasn't been properly washed or styled in days.

"Can I see Henry?" She grunts, aviators firmly in place and hands shoved in her pocket.

"That depends," Regina muses, leaning against the doorframe to consider. "If he coughs, will you run out of town again?"

"Gimme a break," Emma groans. "I thought I'd fucked up yet another family, can you really blame me?"

"I can always find a way to blame you, Miss Swan," Regina reminds her, crossing her arms over her chest. "And Henry's asleep, so you can call to make time with him in future."

"Emma?" Henry calls out from inside the apartment. Damn, the boy always did have the hearing of a bat, Regina remembers with a frown.

Reluctantly, she steps aside to let Emma enter, smelling no perfume or deodorant as the other woman passes, just the faint smell of stale cigarettes and beer. It takes superhuman effort not to drag Emma bodily back out of the apartment.

Thankfully, Emma keeps her distance from Henry, sitting on the far end of the sofa, by his feet.

"Hey, kid," she opens, as awkward as the day she came to return him, like someone who's never been around a child since she was one herself. For a moment, Regina is reminded of herself with Owen, of Hansel and Gretel, children whose love she thought might be available, but that she had no idea how to claim.

"Emma!" He sounds excited, even though his throat is still raspy. "Where were you?" He demands, and in that moment Regina realizes the easy way out isn't being extended to Emma this time.

"I needed to get away, kid," Emma explains. "I haven't left Storybrooke-well, except for the Enchanted Forest-since I brought you back here last year."

"What's in New Hampshire that you can't get here?" Henry presses, and he folds his arms just like Regina does, propped up on the most comfortable pillows Regina could find.

"I was aiming for Boston," Emma says, wincing as she pulls the sunglasses off. Regina walks past, pretending to busy herself in the kitchen, but a brief glance confirms that Emma's eyes are bloodshot, and the damage from the fire hasn't entirely left her body yet. No doubt she hasn't been looking after herself, which can't have helped. "Henry, I really didn't mean to leave you behind, okay? I want you to know that. Sometimes grown-ups just need some time."

"Did they tell you?" Henry says, unfolding his arms to pick up the comic book on his lap. "You were really trying to save me after all."

"Always the Savior," Regina chimes in, unable to stop herself. "Henry, are you hungry yet?"

"I don't want more soup," Henry sighs.

"Then ice cream it is," Regina offers, reveling in playing the cool mom for just a moment. "Miss-"

"God, can you just call me Emma?" She sighs. "I get it. You're pissed. You have every right to be. But going back to pretending we're strangers isn't going to cut it, Regina."

"Do _you_ want ice cream?" Regina snaps, and it isn't what she intended to say at all, but there's no denying the fact that Henry seems brighter than he has all week. So if tolerating Emma's presence is the price for that, Regina is going to pay it.

"Sure," Emma says. "No sprinkles, though."

"We're in your apartment," Regina points out. "Did you mistake it for Baskin Robbins?"

Emma rolls her eyes dramatically, and Henry giggles. For a moment Regina no longer smells the acrid smoke or tastes tears in the back of her throat. For the first time in too long, she exhales all the way.

* * *

Henry's energy flags quickly, and Regina doesn't have the strength to move him back to bed, pulling more blankets over the sofa instead, patting each of his dressings in turn to make sure everything is secure.

"I should..." Emma looks despairingly at the door.

"Lucky Kathryn didn't reassign this," Regina stalls for just a moment. "The house is... well, it's going to take some time."

"Even magic construction has union rules, huh?" Emma teases, but her heart clearly isn't in it. "I've got the pleasure of living with my parents again."

"I assume that's why you came over so soon?" Regina supplies.

"Yeah," Emma nods. "I mean, no, I wanted to see Henry," she adds, in the strangely loud whispers they've adopted. "Like I said, I should go."

That flicker of panic returns, and Regina places it this time, seeing the whole of Emma's face. If she walks out that door it won't be to Snow and Charming's disgusting little chocolate-box of a house, but rather to the nearest place to get good and blitzed.

"I'd offer you some pills to take the edge off," Regina says, taking a deep breath before scoring the point. "But I flushed them all."

"I'm fine," Emma lies. "But seriously? All of them?"

"Well, there might be some that didn't burn, when I get back into the house. But they'll meet the same fate," Regina assures her, with a quick glance to make sure Henry's face is still slack with sleep.

"And the magic?" Emma asks, leaning in with genuine interest.

"Done," Regina declares, surprised by how forcefully she means it. At the moment the magic in her system feels like the last hours of a virus, a leftover toxin just waiting to be sweated or scrubbed out. Not that it will ever leave her completely, Regina knows that, but the disconnect now that she's decided to give up for herself makes wanting to do magic seem like another person altogether. "I, uh, it hasn't been easy. It won't be. I've started going to your meeting thing."

"You're in AA?" Emma presses. "Seriously?"

"I'm told these things can't be done alone," Regina defends herself. "And yes, some of them are self-indulgent idiots, but there are actually some helpful ideas, if you listen. Anyway, it was just one meeting. That's why I couldn't come to get you, if you were wondering."

"I assumed you were still pissed at me," Emma admits. "I'm plenty pissed at myself."

"If you don't want to go to their house," Regina interrupts, not wanting to rake it all over the coals again. "You can stay here, for the afternoon. My one condition is that you shower and change. I don't want all your bar germs around Henry while he's still fragile."

"Always the mom," Emma teases, but it's entirely good-natured.

"One of us has to be," Regina says, with a shrug. She feels overdressed in her office slacks and red blouse. "I'll lay out something clean from the things you left here."

"Thank you," Emma sighs, relaxing for the first time since she arrived. She stands to go take that shower, pausing en route to touch Regina's elbow, leaning in for the briefest of kisses against her cheek. "Thank you," Emma repeats, and Regina simply nods towards the stairs.

* * *

Half an hour later and Henry's sleepy wheezing is grating on Regina's nerves, even as she tries to keep herself occupied with quietly cleaning the dingy flat. Whatever her merits as a ruler or a teacher, Mary Margaret was certainly no homemaker, and that trait turned out to be genetic.

With the excuse of taking up more towels, Regina climbs the stairs to where Emma's old bedroom adjoins the bathroom, and lays the slightly worn and graying white towels out on top of the comforter.

The bathroom door is open, steam spilling into the room. Regina moves to close it, muttering under her breath about how their child is more house-trained than Emma, and that's when she overhears the strangled sob.

She could walk back downstairs and absolve herself of all responsibility, and Regina finds her feet taking the first steps without her permission; she is, after all, already so very tired. A second sob changes her mind, the echo of every time Regina cried alone in her father's house or Leopold's castle all too present in the sound.

"Emma?" She asks softly, easing the door open a little wider. "Emma, I'm coming in," Regina adds with a little more authority, if for no other reason than old habits die hard.

The only response is more sobbing from behind the steamed-up glass of the shower stall, and Regina opens it to find Emma crouched on the floor, arms wrapped around her legs as she cries. Bruises, in various hues of freshness, pepper her skin at every turn, and Regina sighs at the sight of burns that still seem red and angry, no doubt left uncleaned and untreated.

"Come on," Regina coaxes, turning the water off with a swift turn of the knob before reaching out to Emma. "This won't do you any good."

Emma looks up at her then, wet hair plastered flat on her head and against her cheeks, eyes already red-rimmed.

"What will?" She demands.

* * *

It takes a firm hand and a brusque set of instructions, but Emma stumbles through the steps to get dressed in warm pajamas, slipping into the bed like she never stopped living in this odd apartment. Regina checks on Henry from the landing, satisfied that he's still asleep, and slips back in to deal with Emma.

"Here," Regina orders, motioning for Emma to turn around. With a comb from the dresser, Regina untangles the knots and flicks away the rest of the water, trying not to breathe in the minty scent of Emma's cheap shampoo, something Regina had no idea she missed until this very moment. She hesitates for a second, before separating the strands and pulling a tight braid in the flowing blonde hair, surprised when Emma leans back into the braiding motion instead of making a complaint.

"Hungry?" Regina asks, wondering how the hell she ended up playing nurse to a woman she recently swore never to look at again. "There's no alcohol in the house, so..."

"I'm fine," Emma insists. "I have no appetite, but Mary Margaret forced breakfast on me earlier."

"They do that," Regina commiserates. "You can have something when Henry wakes up, if you're hungry then."

"Am I staying?" Emma pleads, her green eyes paler than usual, seemingly as drained as the rest of her.

"I don't have the energy or the magic to throw you out," Regina admits. "I suppose that means it's up to you. Or Henry."

"David said..." Emma trails off, frowning and rubbing at her temples. "He said that Gold might be behind the fire? I thought we were done with all this crap, I really did."

"It turns out his issues extend far beyond my mother," Regina replies. "I've been wracking my brains, but the stupid Fairy seems to think there's a further prophecy about Gold and that damn dagger, so we'll have to see what happens; he'll certainly be strong enough to fight again soon."

"I can't face it," Emma blurts out. "I mean, I know, right? Dragons and ogres and Cora and even you, when you were being all Carrie at the prom about everything, I'm the Savior, this is what I'm supposed to do."

"I was supposed to become the Evil Queen and cast the curse," Regina reminds her. "That doesn't mean I enjoyed most of it."

"What happens if I don't want to be the Savior anymore?" Emma asks, her voice so quiet, so tiny, that Regina barely hears her while sitting only a few feet away.

"You have options," Regina reminds her. "And _if_ you're still worried about Henry, well, I'll be here to protect him. With magic, if I absolutely have to."

"Of course I'm worried about him!" Emma snaps. "God, do you think it was easy? I only left because I thought I'd failed him again, Regina."

"Leaving him seems to be the only consistent part of your parenting," Regina counters. "And he's as painfully aware of that as anyone!"

"I..." Emma fades quickly, the brief flare of color in her cheeks fading as quickly as it had appeared. "I didn't come here to argue with you."

"What did you-"

Emma lunges across the small space between them, silencing Regina with a clumsy kiss on the mouth. Their noses bump as Emma adjusts her position, and suddenly it's like they've never done this before.

"Sorry," Emma blurts when she finally lets Regina go. "I know you probably don't want to do that anymore."

"Oh for Gods' sakes," Regina sighs, yanking Emma close again by the front of her pajama shirt. "Wanting has never really been our problem, has it?"

If Emma intends to agree, Regina's kiss steals that reply along with her breath. There's fury in the tight lines of Regina's lips, and only with kiss after determined kiss does the tension start to ease, the familiar flicks and soft pressure of Emma's tongue against her own more effective than any amount of advice she's been given this week about how to relax.

Moments later, Emma's trembling fingers are undoing the buttons of Regina's blouse, and when the skin is exposed to her, Emma seems almost compelled to touch it, her fingers in constant motion as they stroke over Regina's ribs, over the swell of her breasts in her lacy black bra, like Emma thinks her access will be revoked at any moment and she has to memorize every last inch.

The quiet desperation of it makes Regina uncomfortable, so she slips a hand beneath Emma's shirt, seeking out an unguarded nipple and pinching it between thumb and forefinger, smiling as Emma gasps at the sudden escalation.

Any hope of gentle, of tentative stroking and anything even close to the love that Emma threatened her with over a week ago, diminishes with that simple action. Clothes are shoved at and almost torn in the need to press naked skin against naked skin, Emma's body still slightly damp beneath her clothes.

She pulls away long enough to ease the bedroom door closed, before practically pouncing on Regina and pinning her against the mattress. The kisses Emma claims now are hungry ones, her mouth darting over every line and hollow, sometimes teasing but mostly sucking hard enough to leave faint marks, then grazing and nipping with the sharpness of her teeth.

Regina closes her eyes in a moment of contentment; with Emma it's always, always better when it hurts. For every bite or careless suck that sets Regina's teeth on edge, she rakes her short nails over the bruised skin of Emma's back, thrilling at every groan it draws from Emma's busy mouth.

"Missed you," Emma murmurs against Regina's breast, and she yanks Emma's hair in retaliation. "I did," Emma persists, before sucking on the opposite nipple, her lips full and pink and lewd to watch as she lavishes attention that sends jolts firing through Regina like electricity. "Especially this part," Emma teases, releasing the hard nipple reluctantly, before kissing her way down Regina's stomach, her tongue tracings paths that her punctuates with pointed bites.

"If you missed me so much," Regina hisses as Emma grazes her hipbone, an area so sensitive it makes Regina wriggle away from the touch before relenting to the slow line that Emma is drawing with the tip of her tongue. "You shouldn't have gone in the first place."

"Can't miss someone if you never leave," Emma offers, before returning to chart a course lower and lower, inch by maddening inch. Her fingers are gripping Regina's thighs hard enough to bruise already, meaning it's not so much a choice when Regina spreads them as an inevitable next step.

"Hmm," Emma muses, the vibration passing through Regina's clit as Emma's mouth hovers immediately above it. "My wrist is still kinda messed up from last week."

"If you're not up to the task-" Regina starts to scold, but Emma rolls away with a sigh, before fumbling in the bottom drawer of the nightstand.

"I never did get a chance to round up supplies," Emma points out, and Regina has to admit that the unplanned and mostly frantic nature of their encounters so far hasn't really lent itself to accessorizing. "And I figured once I was hooking up with you, other people would get too squeamish to go raiding my old room."

She produces the slender black toy with very little flourish, running the tip through the considerable wetness already gathered between Regina's thighs.

"Well?" Regina demands. "Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?"

"So impatient," Emma says, tutting in mock disapproval. "Anyone would think you missed me."

"I've been... oh," Regina gasps as the rounded head is pressed gently inside. "Busy," she finishes weakly, as Emma works the toy back and forth, the penetration so shallow it should barely count, but damned if it isn't setting off happy sensations in Regina's nerve endings all the same. She really is most sensitive right around the edges, and Emma's fingers were already adept at manipulating that.

"Good?" Emma asks, lying on her front between Regina's parted thighs, their eyes meeting over the rise and fall of Regina's chest as breathing becomes more difficult.

"Mmm," is all Regina will give in return.

It's enough for Emma, because her next thrust is far deeper, and Regina cries out in pleasant surprise. Just the right side of painful, the same stretch and burn when Emma works up to a fourth finger. Then Emma is lying on top of her again, hand still controlling the black silicon at a punishing pace, letting Regina wrap her legs around Emma's waist for leverage.

The kisses are disjointed now, more an attempt at possessiveness by Emma than anything else, but Regina's body is thrumming happily, and so she allows it.

By the time Emma slides down again to lick Regina's clit in counterpoint to the thrusts, Regina knows she isn't far from climax, and in the end it only takes a few deft flicks to push her over the edge, soaking Emma's chin and the sheet in the process, a complete release after too many days of painful tension.

Feeling boneless but sated, Regina clutches carelessly at Emma until they're face to face again, Regina rolling her way on top even as she's tasting herself on Emma's lips and tongue.

When the toy slips free a moment later, Regina doesn't think twice about grabbing it, staring for a moment at the evidence of her own excitement on it, before presenting it to Emma's waiting mouth and whispering "lick it clean".

Of course, Emma's eyes narrow in automatic defiance, but something in the way Regina is watching her makes Emma relent, her tongue flickering out reluctantly at first. Soon she's swirling that tongue all over the black surface, until it's glistening in a whole new way.

"Happy?" Emma questions, raising an eyebrow as she takes the toy from Regina's hand and throws it aside.

"I love you, too," Regina answers, horrified at the admission and burying her face against the side of Emma's neck. "I was terrified," she murmurs a minute later, when Emma doesn't respond. "I thought I was coming home to find I'd lost everything. Again."

"I'm not a thing," Emma corrects, sounding a lot more pouty that anyone who just dragged a confession of love from Regina has any right to. "You don't collect me like another trinket. I'm not some heart in a box, Regina."

"I said... you heard what I said," Regina clarifies. "And it's not about possession. I couldn't own you if I tried."

"Which is why you love me so damn much, right?" Emma mocks, laughing out loud when Regina rolls her eyes.

"Don't push it," Regina says, with a playful smack to Emma's thigh. "Now speaking of things that I do like very much..."

"I'm too sore," Emma says, blushing furiously. "Maybe later?"

Regina frowns, but accepts Emma's assessment of her own condition. It feels lazy, somehow, but Regina shifts to the side, pulling the sheets over herself and Emma, and though it feels too much like the kind of cuddling she avoids like the plague, Regina presses herself against Emma's side anyway. To compensate, she digs her nails in when gripping Emma's hip. Emma simply hums in contentment when she does.

"Henry will be awake soon," Regina says, not quite ready to leave the strange world they've created in the safety of the bed.

"But he isn't awake yet," Emma reminds her, grabbing another pillow and getting comfortable with Regina wrapped around her.

* * *

Regina exhales carefully, rolls her shoulders a little, and realizes it's the first time she's felt relaxed since getting the call from Marvin about the fire. They lie there in perfect silence for at least ten minutes, until Regina can feel her eyelids getting heavy, drowsiness gathering around her like magic smoke.

"How come you never, uh, tried to, you know... save me?" Emma asks, staring up at the ceiling with her hands behind her head. "I mean, I know you've been helping in some ways, but you're the only one who didn't demand I get better."

"It's nothing personal," Regina replies quite simply. "But I learned my lesson about saving girls in danger a very long time ago."

"I don't think I can do it," Emma says a long moment later. "Another battle, another quest. I do need to try to get better, like I was before I came here. I was coping, you know?"

"It sounds more and more like you know what you have to do," Regina sighs. "Just be sure not to hurt Henry in the process."

"I have some money saved up," Emma admits, caution in her tone. "So I was thinking, there's a place..."

"A clinic?" Regina finishes.

"Yeah," Emma says, exhaling heavily. "A rehab. It's just outside Cambridge, in fact."

"If you think it's necessary," Regina says, and in the quiet after her words she hears a thump from downstairs to suggest that Henry's stirring. She slips out from under the sheets, telling herself she isn't mourning the loss of Emma's warm body pressed against her own, and picks up her discarded clothes quickly and quietly, redressing in no particular hurry.

"I think it might be," Emma confesses, rolling onto her side, watching Regina fasten her slacks.

"Then talk to your family about it," Regina says, shrugging her shoulders with what she hopes looks like nonchalance. "And Henry, explain as much as you can without traumatizing him."

"But I should wait?" Emma asks, propping herself up on one elbow. "I mean, sleep on it, all that jazz?"

"I think it's just wasting time if you already know it's what you have to do," Regina tells her, turning towards the bedroom door. "So I suppose you can either come have soup with Henry, or go break the news to your parents."

"They'll be happy about it, right?"

"I imagine they'll be happy about anything, if it makes you feel better," Regina replies, before making her way downstairs to check on their son.

* * *

Emma appears a few minutes later, dressed in a tracksuit she used to go running in some mornings, back when Regina only crossed her path as an occasional adversary. She sits on the sofa with Henry again, and they talk in low voices that Regina doesn't try to overhear from her place in the kitchen where pots are already bubbling.

Whatever Emma says, it makes Henry's cautious expression give way to a smile, and a moment later they're hugging in that easy way Henry has, regardless of how it makes Emma stiffen in the embrace.

"I'll let you know when I'm going," Emma says, sneaking up on Regina once her back is turned to tend to the soup and potatoes she has boiling. "I'd better go break the news."

"Good luck," Regina says, knowing that if they were conventional in any way she could suggest going with Emma, could invite the family here to announce this latest development, but they remain two broken people trying to fit into a complicated and fragmented family that neither of them entirely understand or care for. "If you want..." she starts to offer, the embarrassing declaration of love still simmering inside her.

"Nah," Emma shrugs it off. "This is probably better. If they think you suggested it, well."

"Of course," Regina sighs, turning back to the food she's preparing for Henry. "Anyway, good luck. Like I said."

Emma kisses her cheek again, and leaves without another word.

* * *

It's late when Regina hears Emma's Bug idling outside the apartment, the noise painfully familiar when she hears it through the open bedroom window. She considers ignoring it, but instead she slips out of bed and pulls an oversized Patriots sweatshirt and the black pants from that day back on, before slipping down the stairs in the dark, checking on Henry in the downstairs bedroom area before grabbing the apartment keys and making her way out to the street.

Emma is waiting, leaning against the hood, curly blonde hair glinting in the moonlight.

"You told them?" Regina asks, scanning the street for other citizens, but the town seems deserted just after midnight.

"They think it's a great idea," Emma replies. "Twenty-eight days to dry out and turn my life around. No problem, right?"

Regina looks at the car more carefully, sees more than one bag crammed into the backseat, and forms an answer to the question that's been nagging at her since Emma raised the subject the previous afternoon.

"You don't want to be back in four weeks," Regina states quite calmly.

"I didn't say that," Emma says, a flash of panic in her eyes. Regina would have more sympathy if Emma hadn't come here basically begging to be seen through.

"Did you tell Henry earlier?" Regina demands, thinking of how withdrawn the boy was after Emma's departure.

"I didn't know how," Emma admits, her shoulder slumping in defeat. "I just told him I was really happy he was back with his mom, so if I needed to go get better, he would be safe. And loved."

"Right," Regina says, wrapping her arms around her torso, feeling ridiculous in the borrowed sweatshirt from Emma's closet. "Well, safe trip, I guess."

"Regina!" Emma calls out after her, jogging along the sidewalk to stop her.

"Be quiet," Regina warns. "I don't want the entire neighborhood knowing any more of my business."

"I thought this would be easy," Emma says. "I thought that everything I said before I could forget, if it meant being able to leave."

"Sorry to be such an inconvenience," Regina says through gritted teeth. "But don't do me any favors, Emma. I have my son, I'll be just fine."

"What if this is just something else I'm screwing up?" Emma asks. "What if you're my destiny, or some crap like that?"

"You tell me," Regina challenges. "How have either of us done when it comes to escaping destiny so far?"

"Not that well," Emma admits. "I do need to get away. I need to try and get this all under control without Henry expecting and my parents doing those disappointed little sighs when they think I can't hear them."

"Then go," Regina says, taking Emma's hands in her own. "If I'd kept running all those years ago, when I first got rid of my mother... who knows?"

"Running's never been this hard before," Emma is crying freely now, tears rushing down her face. "Every other time, I knew it was the right choice. And uh..."

"What?" Regina snarls.

"Well, you and letting go of things... don't exactly go together. Even if you don't really feel anything for me, this isn't really your style."

"Maybe I'm learning," Regina says. "Or maybe I'm just too tired to fight every time I lose someone now."

"That's really depressing," Emma sighs. "What if Henry feels that way about me, too?"

"Henry is always going to want you in his life," Regina admits. "So when you're ready... I think he'll forgive you any absence. He got over those first ten years pretty quickly."

"Ouch," Emma complains, squeezing Regina's hands. "What about you? If I bail for... I don't know, six months? Am I gonna come back here and find you hooking up with... Hook?"

"No!" Regina protests. "Give me some credit. And I'm not looking for anyone else to... move in. Or do anything else, not that it's any of your business."

"You'll put Henry first," Emma realizes.

"That's what a mother does," Regina replies. "Even my mother did that, although not in a healthy way."

"You know, I could just drink a bottle of something, drive my car off the Toll Bridge and save us all a lot of trouble," Emma says, not meeting Regina's eye this time. She pulls her hands away, shoving them in the pockets of a brown leather jacket that Regina doesn't recognize.

"Don't you dare," Regina warns, thinking of her kitchen all those months ago, of the fight and the kiss that seems to have turned her world upside down without her realizing. "And, well, not just for Henry's sake, okay?"

Emma kisses her then, the softness of her lips somehow desperate and sweet at the same time. Regina tangles her fingers in blonde curls, a hundred ways to stop Emma from leaving competing for space in Regina's mind, but she forces herself to ignore each persistent little voice.

"What about Gold?" Emma asks when the kiss ends. "If he starts something, I mean?"

"I'll leave you a voicemail?" Regina suggests. "I mean, you should call for Henry whenever you want. Write, if you can spell, but your paperwork suggests you should work on that. But if we're not... I don't want to make small talk about the weather with you."

"I do want to come back," Emma argues. "At least I think I do. I just don't know how soon I can. I feel like I need to learn to cope all over again. Every time I start thinking about the family stuff, about the kid, about you... it feels like my brain is gonna burst out of my head like the Alien."

"Those burst out of chests, dear," Regina corrects, almost laughing at the shocked expression on Emma's face. "I like Sigourney Weaver."

"Of course you do," Emma sighs. "Tell me to stay?"

"I won't do that," Regina says, shaking her head. "Don't you want this one thing in your life to actually be your decision?"

"I really do," Emma admits. "But it also scares the hell out of me. For months I've been finding out that I didn't choose a damn thing, that it was all done for me. Neal, August, the fucking curse... all of it."

"Then choose now," Regina urges. "I might change some of the things I've actually done, given the choice all over again. But having the freedom to do those things? I wouldn't trade it for anything."

"Jesus, Regina. One AA meeting and you're the fucking voice of reason?" Emma whines.

"No," Regina corrects her. "I have a long way to go."

"You really won't tell me to stay?" Emma asks. "Or call me in an hour saying you shouldn't have let me leave?"

"I won't," Regina confirms.

"So... if you love someone, let them go?" Emma ventures, looking ten years younger as she makes herself vulnerable.

"It's that or smother them to death, I suppose," Regina sighs. "It's cold, Emma. I should go back to bed before Henry realizes I'm up."

"Yeah," Emma says, opening the passenger door. "I should leave these with you," she adds, fumbling in the glove compartment and producing her gun and Sheriff's badge. Regina flinches instinctively at the sight of the gun, ignoring Emma's smirk.

"Well, leaving them with anyone else would be a dead giveaway," Regina says. "Fine, I'll make sure a new Sheriff is in place. Perhaps I'll just waltz back into the Town Hall, reinstate myself as Mayor, too."

"Believe it or not," Emma answers. "I've heard way worse ideas."

"Get in the car, if you're going," Regina warns. Her resolve is starting to waver under the sulfur light of the streetlamps. Any minute now she's going to betray something like actually caring, and that's something she'll never be able to walk back.

"Can I kiss you again?" Emma asks, shy again.

"Best not," Regina replies. "It's already, well, difficult enough."

"I'll call," Emma promises. "Or write."

"I'll look after Henry," Regina promises.

"I know," Emma says with a watery smile. "You always did, even when you went batshit crazy."

"Not getting any easier," Regina says, clutching the badge hard enough that the points threaten to break the skin of her palm.

"Okay," Emma says. "Goodbye, Regina."

"Goodbye, Emma," Regina says right back, proud of her voice for not wavering.

A moment later, Emma has slipped the car into gear, and the ugly yellow monstrosity is rolling down Main Street.

Regina doesn't watch long enough to see if Emma looks back.

* * *

Henry's waiting by the apartment door, looking healthier than he has all week, hair still mussed from sleep.

"We'll be okay, Mom," he promises, taking Emma's things from her and guiding Regina in towards the sofa where they both sit in stunned silence.

"Yes," Regina says eventually, pulling Henry carefully into a hug with one arm. "We all will."

* * *

**It is over and it is done. I'm just dying to hear your thoughts, whether you've been along for the ride so far, or are just starting now that the story is complete. Thank you all for your thoughts and generous comments along the way. Not kidding when I say I couldn't do it without you.**

Thanks to chilly for the swift and reassuring beta job!


End file.
